CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 ui Cornell University 
 
 1934 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PQ 2450.T6B4 1893 
 
 Belle-Plante and Cornelius. 
 
 1924 027 376 080 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027376080 
 
Belle-Plante and Cornelius 
 
 BY 
 
 CLAUDE TILLIEE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "MY UNCLE BESJAHIH" 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 
 BY 
 
 BENJ. E. TUCKER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE MEEEIAM COMPANY 
 
 ST. PAUL 
 F 
 
t\bsi3n 
 
 COPTBIGHTED, 1893, BY 
 
 THE PEICE-McGILL CO. 
 
INTEODUOTIOK 
 
 One cannot have too much of Claude Tillier. He 
 stands forth in bold relief as an eloquent example 
 of the rugged, honest style of the past, made more 
 effective by virtue of contrast with the conven- 
 tional, artificial style of to-day. He appeals to us 
 with an old gospel newly interpreted — the gospel of 
 humanity. He calls a spade a spade, and speaks 
 from the heart. Others have done the former, but 
 so few, comparatively speaking, have done the lat- 
 ter that Tillier is almost unique. He speaks of lib- 
 erty of mind and conscience, where others would 
 tightly shackle heart and soul. His is a voice from 
 out the vistas of the past, heard faintly, if at all, 
 until now ; and the voice, like an inward monitor, 
 says, "There is more happiness for man in mind 
 than in matter. " 
 
 " A prophet is not without honor, save in his own 
 country." How true this was of the gifted but un- 
 fortunate author of "My Uncle Benjamin" and 
 "BeUe-Plante and Cornelius," who was born in an 
 
6 INTEODUCTION. 
 
 obscure town in one of the provinces of France; 
 who was a philosopher in childhood; who cried 
 "Vive I'Empereur" at school; who fought against 
 the Spaniards in a distasteful cause under the laws 
 of conscription; who taught a communal school; 
 who won local fame as a pamphleteer ; who fought 
 cowled and tinselled corruption in high places ; who 
 was ignored by Paris because he was provincial, 
 and who died in obscurity on October twelfth, 
 eighteen hundred and forty-four, at the age of 
 forty-three years! The slings and arrows of outra- 
 geous fortune were his ; his country gave checks to 
 proud ambition, and his people forgot him. It is a 
 melancholy truth that the rewards of the truly 
 great do not come until after death, and Tillier was 
 no exception. He was clearly in advance of his 
 time. He was fitted for the millennial age, where- 
 in men shall listen and believe and be content ; but, 
 by some error of Karmic disposition, he crept into 
 this breathing world of ours all too soon for himself 
 and those whom he sought to teach and to disci- 
 pline. His portion was blows, his penalty oblivion, 
 and his destiny a practical joke upon genius. He 
 was enough of a satirist to concentrate the fierce 
 hatred and determined opposition of a clerical cabal 
 and a political clique ; but he was too much of a 
 
INTKODUCTIOSr. 7 
 
 sage to be appreciated at his true value. Noah was 
 reviled; John the Baptist was met with scorn; 
 Luther was persecuted ; the record of the world is 
 punctuated by the martyrdom of thinkers. Tillier, 
 therefore, was a repetition of history, wherein those 
 who were born to warn, to cheer, to free and to 
 save were neither honored nor believed until they 
 spoke from the dim recesses of their tombs. 
 
 It was Tillier's misfortune that he was born in 
 France, which has all the unreason and f orgetful- 
 ness of a child, and that he saw the light too early. 
 Nevertheless, upon the white sands of time he left 
 footprints, which, half obliterated by the waves of 
 years and the rush of hurrying feet, were discovered 
 before they disappeared forever. A mere chance 
 visit to a bookstall led to the resurrection of "My 
 Uncle Benjamin" — that delightful chronicle of the 
 misadventures, good deeds and sage soliloquies of 
 the bon vivant Rathery — and the rehabilitating of 
 Tillier in the worth originally screened from the 
 world by the dust and smoke of conflict. Justice 
 was tardy, but none the less certain. "My Uncle 
 Benjamin," in a newer and brighter garb than the 
 tailor of Clamecy could have made, was again placed 
 before mankind. 
 
 The eflEect was not without phases of interest, in- 
 
8 IKTKODUCTION. 
 
 dicating the infinite variety of taste. Those who 
 read a book for mere incident were bored; those 
 who would drape a faultless Psyche in ugly flannels 
 lifted their hands and eyes at the bold freedom of 
 the author's pen ; but those who read for the sake 
 of the truths which lie like jewels in the rich mines 
 of an honest author's paragraphs, tossed aside hec- 
 tic sentiment, doctrinal polemics and the like and 
 hailed Tillier as a new draught of old wine, meat 
 after hlanc mange, philosophy after puerility. One 
 could read Tillier again and again, and still find new 
 beauties upon each page. 
 
 But the best was yet to come. " My Uncle Ben- 
 jamin, " while it established the author upon a firm 
 basis of merit, was not the full expression of the 
 powers of his pen. A man like Tillier could not 
 have stopped there, writing " Finis" after wit and 
 satire alone. He was a mine to be developed, and 
 the lead unearthed " Belle-Plante and Cornelius," 
 which now for the first time reaches the American 
 public, and in a handsomer form than poor Tillier 
 e'er dreamed that book of his would one day be 
 given. 
 
 As a story, " Belle-Plante and Cornelius" may not 
 have the direct human interest of "My Uncle Ben- 
 jamin ;" but, as a keen and sympathetic study of 
 
IKTBODUCTION. 9 
 
 the fair ideal and the bald real, of the higher and 
 baser instincts of man, of the diversity of types, 
 of the compensations of genius, and of the charms 
 of the muck-rake, it ranks far above the other book. 
 Belle-Plante and his brother Cornelius are as un- 
 deniable types of to-day and of every age as are 
 Dives and Lazarus. Belle-Plante represents the 
 spirit of greed which nurses the real because of its 
 intrinsic value as a marketable commodity. Cor- 
 nelius stands for the Sisyphus who toils up the 
 slope which leads to the heights of fame, hampered 
 at every step, strained at every point and frequently 
 borne backward by the weight of the commonplace. 
 Belle-Plante is the plodder; Cornelius is the poet. 
 Belle-Plante is the world, which exacts every far- 
 thing of tribute ere it will listen to the dreaming 
 Cornelius. Belle-Plante is humanity, which steals 
 the fruits of genius and leaves Cornelius penniless. 
 Cornelius is Tillier, but slightly idealized, while 
 Belle-Plante is the ill fortune which robbed the world 
 of a philosopher. In refusing to give his brother 
 meat and drink, Belle-Plante merely gives the high- 
 est expression to commercial benevolence. 
 
 Tillier says: "My opinion is that man is a ma- 
 chine made expressly for sorrow." The reader 
 will do well to turn to " My Uncle Benjamin" and 
 
10 INTRODUCTION^. 
 
 read the sermon of which this sentence is the com- 
 prehensive text. The truth then uttered was am- 
 plified into Cornelius, who, lured on by his ideals, 
 pursues a mirage. This is pessimism, and the world 
 loves optimism. Perhaps ; but pessimism is a truth, 
 and optimism is only a creed. Truths are eternal ; 
 creeds are not alway truths. Belle-Plante prospers 
 over the muck-rake, while Cornelius wins nothing 
 save a woman's love and an uncertain fate. It is 
 so in life, albeit pessimism is frowned upon and life is 
 regarded as the joyous ante-chamber to an infinitely 
 and monotonously happy beyond. If the latter 
 were true, then this life would be an anti-climax or 
 heaven a superfluity ; but it is not, as Tillier demon- 
 strates in his quaint fashion. The only ray of sun- 
 shine, aside from that which is generated in the 
 heart of genius and shines only there, is that Belle- 
 Plante's wealth cannot win the love of Cornelius' 
 betrothed. In fine, gold cannot buy honest love. 
 That is the silver lining of the cloud of pessimism. 
 
 Franklyn W. Lee. 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 I BEG you to believe that I am neither an in- 
 spector of primary schools nor a director of indirect 
 taxes ; therefore I am not acquainted with all the 
 villages of Nievre ; yet I would willingly bet with 
 the first of the aforesaid functionaries who might 
 come along that the prettiest of all these villages is 
 Armes. Armes is on the road from^ Clamecy to 
 Avallon, twenty-two miles from Avallon and two 
 steps from Olamecy, which continually attracts it 
 and will finally absorb it as the earth absorbs an 
 imprudent aerolite which ventures too close. If you 
 light your cigar at the last houses of the suburb 
 called Bethleem, it will not go out before you reach 
 Armes. You, then, who live within a dozen miles 
 of Clamecy, go to see Armes, if you have not yet 
 seen it ; and, if you know how to handle a crayon 
 and have an album, take your album with you. I 
 
 answer for it that you will not regret your money ; 
 
 11 
 
12 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 and, moreover, if you do regret it, although coun- 
 sellors are not payers, I, Claude Tillier, will reim- 
 burse you. 
 
 I love the spring with its pink and white bushes; 
 I love the summer with its fallow fields encircled 
 with bright verdure; I love also the winter with 
 its dark trees, whose frost -covered heads make 
 them look like judges wearing powdered wigs ; but 
 more than all, I love those warm, moist days of 
 autumn, when the sun is bald and without polish, 
 and when a flaky cloud, like white floating down, 
 fills all the space between earth and sky; when the 
 trees, mountains, and hamlets look gray and misty, 
 as if reflected by a dull mirror, and when the coun- 
 try resembles an elysian landscape ; when the green 
 of the woods is tinged with brown and red, and 
 when long trails of yellow leaves are borne upon the 
 streams like a funeral procession ; when, in short, 
 feverish and consumptive nature still wears a smile, 
 but that weak smile which sometimes remains on 
 the lips of the dead. Now then, start from Clam- 
 ecy on one of those delightfully fine days. I tell 
 you this because then the float is over, and the 
 Yonne is rid of those great piles of grayish logs 
 which give its valley the odor of mould and the 
 prosaic aspect of a lumber-yard. 
 
BBLLE-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 13 
 
 As far as the Maladrerie, an old hospital for lep- 
 ers, now abolished and of which nothing is left but 
 the chapel, the road goes on prosaically between a 
 trimmed hedge and a field of lucern; it goes on 
 without thinking of anything, looking neither to 
 right nor to left, and thoroughly tired of the bur- 
 den imposed upon it by the department of roads and 
 bridges; but opposite the Maladrerie it suddenly 
 awakens from its somnolence, turns abruptly to the 
 left, and enters upon the ridge of one of those high 
 mountains whose chain, after crossing the entire 
 department of Nievre, buries itself gradually, and 
 finally disappears altogether in the gravel of the 
 department of Yonne. Here the road is a magnifi- 
 cent terrace, which, from an elevation of one hun- 
 dred and fifty feet, casts a proud and haughty look 
 upon the valley. At your feet the Yonne, continu- 
 ally agitated by the gravel falling from the road, 
 like an ox tormented by flies, winds its way slowly 
 through its meadow-land, and the trees for mar- 
 ket, falling pell-mell down the rough hillsides, come 
 to bathe their roots in the green and sleeping waters 
 of the river. 
 
 At your left rises, like a huge dilapidated wall, 
 the second tier of the mountain. At the foot of 
 this gigantic ruin runs and flees before you a long 
 
14 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKSTELIUS. 
 
 line of houses which serve as a suburb to the vil- 
 lage. For Armes is no shabby and miserable peas- 
 ant : like those marquises who desire pages, it has 
 its suburb, like a city. All its houses are new; 
 they all have a red roof and green blinds; all a vine 
 which envelops them with its large leaves and in 
 summer makes them a beautiful green front ; they 
 are not, like those of our streets, glued together by 
 a common wall ; they are separated from each other 
 by little gardens, by great undivided walnut-trees 
 which mingle their branches over the roofs, by oaks 
 fallen from the summit of the mountain with de- 
 tached sections of rock. On seeing them so adorned 
 and so coquettish, you are reminded of peasant 
 women in their Sunday costumes, walking hand in 
 hand. 
 
 Plants of all sorts grow between the stones loos- 
 ened from the rock, and with every breath of wind 
 shower their flowers and insects upon the roofs. 
 About midway of this avenue of houses you come 
 to the pass of Armes, the first of that long series of 
 passes which make the Yonne artificially navigable 
 a few hours in the week. The river, stopped sud- 
 denly by this gate which the lumber dealers have 
 shut in its face, overflows noisily over the green 
 and grassy stones, and falls in two white sheets 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COEKELIUS. 15 
 
 into the pit. The rest of the river passes through 
 a pretty mill-race which skirts the road. Its bed is 
 clean and free of reeds ; but on its banks grow in 
 profusion those high amphibious plants which have 
 half of their roots in the water and the other half 
 in the earth. After turning a little mill, entirely 
 hidden under two elms, it hastens to rejoin the ma- 
 ternal bed. 
 
 Nothing is more pleasing than the islet formed 
 between the mill-race and the river: the Yonne 
 seems to press it lovingly in its arms, as a mother 
 holds her baby; it reminds you of a blossoming 
 branch in the middle of a vessel filled with water ; 
 it consists of clumps of alders, willows, hazel-trees, 
 and Italian poplars, separated from each other by 
 a thousand rivulets which overflow from the mill- 
 race. If there are two of you, and you have sweet 
 confidences to share, do not take refuge under this 
 verdure; in the first place, the miller's bull-dog 
 might bite you ; in the next place, all these flowing, 
 falling, rushing waters, talking or shouting among 
 the roots of these trees, all these twittering birds, 
 and this eternal chatter of the mill which would not 
 break off its tictac for M. Dupin in person, would 
 stifle your best words on your lips. 
 
 Here we are at Armes. You are in the village 
 
16 BELLE-PLANTE AND COENBLIUS. 
 
 square. If you wish to speak to the mayor, this is 
 the place where he lives, as well as the principal 
 personages of the vicinity. These houses affect an 
 air of importance, like their masters ; for like mas- 
 ter, like house, is as true as like master, like man. 
 Many of them have balconies, and some are decorated 
 with the aristocratic Venetian blind. 
 
 Are you thirsty? Here is a big spring which 
 gushes forth at one end of the square. To be sure, 
 this water is not as good as Burgundy ; but it is 
 famous for miles around on account of its clearness, 
 and you could not drink cooler. After stopping in 
 a large sheltered pool, in which the ducks and the 
 children of the village paddle about, it goes on 
 freely, rippling over the gravel of the road; but, 
 when almost at the end of its course, it falls into a 
 trap which the brewer has set for it and permits it- 
 self to be bottled. Thus it is that all the impulses 
 of liberty to which one abandons himself in his 
 youth often change into servility on the arrival of 
 old age. 
 
 Poor spring! you have allowed yourself to be 
 tempted by the agreeable bitterness of boiled barley 
 and hops ; but, instead of going into tubs to be mal- 
 treated in a hundred ways by college-scouts, was it 
 not better to wander between green branches, to 
 
BBLLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 17 
 
 fling your flakes of foam upon the overhanging 
 grasses, to form delightful eddies at the roots of 
 the willows, to reflect the sky, and to murmur with 
 these twittering birds? You believed in a merry 
 destiny; but vy^hat will come of it all? When your 
 foam has sparkled for a few moments in a beautiful , 
 flash of crystal, what will be your dwelling-place? 
 A hideous bladder, and then they — you understand, 
 they — at the corner of a column ! May this serve 
 as a lesson to those who toady to power ! 
 
 You cannot help sketching in your album the 
 high peak which overlooks the village. Two nar- 
 row valleys creep up each of its flanks like two stair- 
 ways, reminding you of the steps to a gigantic cas- 
 tle in abandonment. Often on its bushy summit 
 you notice the appearance, like the statues that they 
 place on the frontal of an edifice, of an old woman 
 tending her cow or a little shepherd singing, whose 
 song, torn by the wind, reaches you in shreds. 
 
 At Armes, then, in 1780, lived a certain Belle- 
 Plante — Monsieur Belle-Plante to some, and Mas- 
 ter Belle- Plante to others. As he was rich and a 
 churchwarden, the priest, the mayor, and many 
 others called him Monsieur Belle-Plante ; but, as he 
 was a farmer, the peasants said Master Belle-Plante 
 
 for short, unless they had some favor to ask of him. 
 3 
 
18 BELLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 But I who have nothing to ask of Monsieur or 
 Master Belle- Plante, what shall I call him ? I think 
 it prudent, before deciding for one or the other of 
 these two titles, to examine their respective worth. 
 In the first place, what does the title Monsieur sig- 
 nify? Does it express, as the possessive pronoun 
 would seem to indicate, any dependence whatever 
 on the part of him who gives it upon him to whom 
 it is given? But in that case why does a master 
 call his valet Monsieur, unless it be said that in 
 many circumstances the master is dependent upon 
 the valet? Does it indicate social superiority? 
 Then why is it that the minister gives his shoe- 
 maker and his tailor the title Monsieur? Does it 
 come from the word senior, elder, as is maintained 
 by those who haunt the dictionaries and run after 
 etymologies? But how happens it then that a 
 father calls his son Monsieur when he has torn his 
 trousers or his books? Thus the word Monsieur is 
 accused and convicted of lacking common sense. 
 It is a big imbecile who takes off his hat to every- 
 body, who stops everybody, and who has nothing 
 to say to them. It rebels against definition. Mon- 
 sieur Napoleon Landais, Napoleon though he is, 
 would not make it mean anything. I can as well 
 say Monsieur to my horse as to my tailor, just as 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COEKELIUS. 19 
 
 my tailor can as well say Monsieur to his goose as 
 to the editor of "L' Association." I vote for its ex- 
 clusion from the dictionary. So I shall say Master 
 Belle-Plante. Now that this difficulty is settled, 
 we can enter upon the matter hefore us. 
 
 Master Belle-Plante hired five or six small farms, 
 which did not prevent him from cultivating the 
 fine lands which were his own property. His wife 
 had left him two boys : Frangois Belle-Plante, whom 
 they called Belle-Plante for short, because he was 
 the elder, and our friend Cornelius. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 It was a dirty and rainy morning in the month 
 of March. Belle-Plante and Cornelius were walk- 
 ing along the Clamecy road, one carrying a large 
 hare over his shoulder, the other swinging in his 
 hand a bundle of books suspended by a string. 
 They were going to school. Belle-Plante was 
 strongly built ; he had four solid limbs of which a 
 plough could have been made, a nose not too ill- 
 shapen, a mouth which was not absolutely too large, 
 little gray eyes with which he saw as well as with 
 large black eyes ; but he had no heart, or at leasi 
 only one of those hearts of ice which the warm 
 breezes of youth cannot melt. He was one of those 
 dense organizations to which nature has given good 
 weight, in which bones, flesh, and muscles have not 
 been spared, but in which electricity is totally lack- 
 ing. At the age of sixteen Belle-Plante was a man 
 made for egoism and cunning, he loved nobody; 
 he had but one passion, that of accumulation; he 
 would have dismounted from his horse to pick up a 
 pin ; he would have given his soul to the devil f oi 
 
 30 
 
BELLE- PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 21 
 
 a franc, and certainly the devil would have been 
 the dupe. Nevertheless, because he was as clean 
 and neat as a six-franc piece, mothers held him up 
 as an example to their sons. 
 
 Cornelius was just the opposite of Belle-Plante. 
 He was a handsome youth, slender and straight, 
 with a high forehead as smooth as ivory, large 
 flaming eyes, and brown hair which fell in careless 
 disorder, like a tuft of honeysuckle along a wall ; 
 he was good, loving, generous; he had tears and 
 big pennies for all sorts of wretchedness. Saint 
 Martin has been canonized for having given a beg- 
 gar half his cloak ; on such an occasion, our friend 
 Cornelius would have given the whole of his. Nev- 
 ertheless our friend Cornelius is in hell ; for neither 
 the priest, nor M. Guillerand, nor Master Belle- 
 Plante's big whip, had ever been able to induce him 
 to make his first communion. Moreover, he had a 
 keen and precocious mind; in him developed one 
 of those bold and inquiring intellects which wish to 
 know everything, to analyze everything, to fathom 
 everything. He would master a big book in a day, 
 and, when he had started in pursuit of a truth — of 
 a truth within his reach, of course — he was like a 
 hound on the trail of a hare : he did not slacken 
 his pace until he had run it down. 
 
23 BBLLE-PLAKTE AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 He was desperately absent-minded: he was al 
 ways dreaming, calculating, comparing. Whei 
 his father sent him to the fields, he lay down in th( 
 grass and looked at the sky; consequently he nevei 
 returned without an indictment on his back or with 
 out having lost two or three cows. It was told o: 
 him — though I can scarcely credit it — that one day 
 his father having sent him to the cellar, he cam( 
 back with the neck of the bottle in his hand, with 
 out having noticed that he had knocked off the resi 
 against a step. All this led Master Belle-Plante t( 
 say that Cornelius was the most idiotic fellow in th( 
 neighborhood. Moreover, he was exemplarily in 
 different to all that was envelope, exterior, surface, 
 He said that it was always their worst pills whicl 
 the apothecaries wrapped in silver leaf, and he paic 
 no more heed to his dress than an onion pays to its 
 peel. He was constantly unbuttoned ; his coat was 
 in rags ; where there was no hole, you could be sure 
 that there was a grease spot. It was necessary t( 
 dress him anew from top to toe every year ; conse 
 quently Couture, the tailor, was the only person ii 
 Armes who held him in any esteem. - 
 
 Belle-Plante had respectfully spread his handker 
 chief over his felt hat to keep it from the rain, anc 
 had turned up the bottoms of his pantaloons witt 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AN'D OOKNELIUS. 33 
 
 quite religious care, though they were made of 
 nothing but linsey-woolsey. This, moreover, was 
 one of the thousand recommendations given him on 
 her death-bed by his mother, all of whose avarice 
 he had inherited, either to the prejudice or to the 
 advantage of Cornelius ; and, whether it was muddy 
 or dusty, he never failed in this duty. As for Cor- 
 nelius, he had spread nothing, turned up nothing, 
 save his' stockings, which kept falling about his 
 heels with an obstinacy that filled him with despair. 
 Belle-Plante, before putting down his foot, chose, 
 like the cat, the driest spot in the road. Cornelius, 
 on the contrary, went straight ahead like a royal 
 route, paying no heed to the mud-puddles scat- 
 tered along the road, and even without seeing 
 them; consequently Cornelius was as dirty as a 
 poodle. 
 
 The two brothers walked side by side, like two 
 soldiers in the ranks, without speaking to each 
 other, each absorbed in his own reflections. Belle- 
 Plante was the first to break the silence. 
 
 "What are you thinking about, savant?" (this 
 was the nickname given to Cornelius in the village) 
 said he to his brother, roughly slapping him on the 
 shoulder. 
 
 "None of your clownishness, Belle-Plante, I beg 
 
24 BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORKELIUS. 
 
 of you. If we had been in the city, I should hav( 
 thought that a tile had fallen on my shoulder." 
 
 " All right, Monsieur propriety ; we will abstain 
 in future from this clownishness. But what were 
 you thinking about just now?" 
 
 " I was calculating how many yards of gummed 
 taffeta it would take to shelter all the highways in 
 the kingdom from the rain. " 
 
 "Indeed, they are afraid of dampness, the high- 
 ways; and the cross-roads, savant, would you do 
 nothing for them? Are they more to be despised 
 than the highways, or less subject to rheumatism?" 
 
 "We would cover the cross-roads with ticking." 
 
 " That's right : honor to whom honor is due ; but 
 how about the money with which to do this? You 
 would have to invent a gold-mine." 
 
 "That is not necessary, Belle-Plan te ; we would 
 increase the taxes, that's all." 
 
 "You are very generous with others' money, 
 savant ! It is easy to see that you do not count 
 on becoming a proprietor. The taxes are already 
 quite heavy enough as they are, without adding to 
 them !" 
 
 " Heavy, I admit, but not because they are too 
 high: it is because they are ill-spent that they are 
 heavy. When the taxes are well spent; when the 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 35 
 
 public functionaries do not save vast domains out 
 of their salaries ; when they do not place in foreign 
 banks the capital which they receive from the State 
 — the money taken from the taxpayers comes back 
 to them, as the water which the sun has taken 
 away from the earth comes back to it in the form 
 of rain. The higher the taxes, if they are well 
 spent, the happier the people." 
 
 " That is another of those stupidities which you 
 savants call paradoxes. " 
 
 " No, my dear fellow, it is not a paradox ; it is a 
 good and beautiful truth. Imagine an immense 
 roof under which all the inhabitants of France walk. 
 The tall men will carry it almost entirely ; but what 
 will the short carry? Nothing. Such is the tax; 
 light on the poor man, it weighs on the rich alone. 
 Suppose that His Very Christian Majesty were to 
 execute great public works in each locality, what 
 would be the share of the expense borne by each 
 laborer? A few sous; and to him will come back 
 the best part of the money spent. He will have 
 sown a grain of corn to harvest an ear. Our phi- 
 losophers seek the means of improving the condition 
 of the lower classes of society ; if this means exists, 
 it must be found in the well-advised disposition of 
 well-distributed taxes. To force the rich man to 
 
36 BELLE-PLANTB AKD CORNELIUS. 
 
 furnish labor to the poor man — that is the who] 
 problem." 
 
 "Well-distributed taxes! I see what you ar 
 coming at, savant. You would like us proprietor 
 to pay everything, and the poor man nothing. An 
 why should the rich pay for the poor? Tell me thai 
 According to your system, the government woul 
 have to sell its salt, its gunpowder, its tobacco, fo 
 three hundred francs a pound to the millionaire 
 and for a sou a pound to the day laborer. I main 
 tain, for my part, that in a well-organized societ; 
 taxes should be paid so much a head, as in the taveri 
 each one pays his scot, as in the theatre each on 
 pays for his seat." 
 
 "That would be in the highest degree unjust 
 Belle- Plan te ; for almost all social expenditures ar 
 made for the benefit of the rich. The poor man ha 
 no need of rural constables, for he has no estates ti 
 guard; no need of policemen — the destitution o 
 his hut is an excellent lock which the thieves woul( 
 never think of picking; no need of courts, for hi 
 who has nothing has no law -suits; no need of pris 
 ons, for they are made for him; no need of ai 
 army — in time of war the army takes his childrei 
 from him, and in time of peace it prevents him fron 
 being the strongest ; no need of such resplenden 
 
BELIiE-PLANTE AND COEKBLIUS. 27 
 
 royalty — the king does not invite him to his fes- 
 tivities, and it is not upon him that he bestows pen- 
 sions from his privy purse ; no need of the four fac- 
 ulties of the university, for his children do not study 
 Latin ; no need of libraries, for he does not know 
 how to read ; no need of canals and highways, for 
 he has never anything but a beggar's sack to carry; 
 no " 
 
 " Et cetera! " exclaimed Belle-Plante, insolently ; 
 " for my part, I am thinking of more serious things. 
 I am figuring how much we shall get for this hare 
 at the fair. " 
 
 "But this hare does not belong to us," replied 
 Cornelius, promptly; "you know very well that my 
 father makes a present of it to Monsieur Guille- 
 rand. " 
 
 " Monsieur Guillerand ! Monsieur Guillerand ! It 
 would be a pity to have it pass before the red face 
 of that old glutton, who sends to the pastry-cook's 
 for a tart as soon as he has the smallest coin." 
 
 "What concern is it of yours if Monsieur Guille- 
 rand likes tarts?" 
 
 " To be sure, Cornelius, it is no concern of ours ; 
 but do we not pay Monsieur Guillerand? He would 
 be very lucky if all his pupils were as prompt as we 
 are in paying his bills. Look at those wretched 
 
28 BBLLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 Ducrocs, who wear cloth coats all the week, and 
 owe him for three years' schooling." 
 
 "And, according to you, the fact that the Du- 
 crocs owe him for three years' schooling is a good 
 reason why we should rob him of his hare." 
 
 "I do not say that, Cornelius; but don't you un- 
 derstand, you who have so much wit, according to 
 Monsieur Guillerand, that, if we give him this hare, 
 we shall do him more harm than good : he will in- 
 vite to breakfast that scamp of a Benjamin Eathery, 
 that drunkard Page, that gulf Arthus, who swal- 
 lowS a calf's head like so much soup; they will 
 drink thirty bottles of his best wine ; they will emp- 
 ty all his decanters ; then they will take him to the 
 cafe, they will put on his wig with the wrong side 
 in front, as they did the other day, so that he will 
 not know his face from the back of his head, and, 
 on reaching home again, he will beat Madame 
 Guillerand, that excellent woman who always asks 
 mercy for us when he thrashes us." 
 
 "So it is in Monsieur Guillerand 's interest that 
 you take possession of his hare?" 
 
 " In his interest clearly understood, Cornelius. If 
 you were charged to hand a freshly-ground dagger 
 or a pistol all primed to a child, would you give it 
 to him?" 
 
BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 39 
 
 " In the first place, I would not undertake such a 
 commission. Do you know that with such argu- 
 ments as that we should no longer he obliged to pay 
 anybody? And who made you the judge of Mon- 
 sieur Guillerand's interest? If he wishes to invite 
 Monsieur Benjamin Eathery,- Monsieur Page, Mon- 
 sieur Arthus, to breakfast; if he wishes them to 
 drink his wine; if he wishes to get drunk — does 
 that affect you? By what right would you inter- 
 fere? Here is a man of brains, who desires to throw 
 himself into the water; you, who are only a fool, 
 divine his design, and you stop him ; do you not see 
 that you are guilty toward him of an arbitrary act, 
 that you invade his individual liberty? If this man 
 wishes to drown himself, he has good reasons. Does 
 he not know better than you what he ought to do? 
 Why do you substitute your free will for his? If I 
 were judge, I would sentence you to pay him dam- 
 ages. You stop him because he does ill, you say. 
 But what proves to you that he is doing ill? If you 
 think it ill in me to shave off my beard or to cut my 
 corns, does that give you a right to prevent me?" 
 
 "But," said Belle-Plante, "we do not make such 
 astonishing progress in your Monsieur Guillerand's 
 school." 
 
 "Speak for yourself, Belle-Plante, I beg of you. 
 
30 BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 But is it his fault if you make no progress in his 
 school? Instead of going to your lessons, you go to 
 market to see how and at what price hay and oats 
 are selling, and when you are given money to buy 
 pens, you write with old stubs that you pick up un- 
 der the table, and you put the money in your 
 pocket." 
 
 " It does very well for you to talk, you who took 
 to pieces Monsieur Guillerand's cuckoo clock on 
 Saturday, and at the very time when he was teach- 
 ing us the catechism, impious wretch !" 
 
 " What good does the catechism do one? I much 
 prefer analyzing the cuckoo. Now that I have made 
 its autopsy, I understand its connection with the 
 mechanism of a clock." 
 
 "Yes, but you have lost a wheel, and the bird 
 will sing no more. " 
 
 " Well, we are rid of its intolerable screech. It 
 had a fine voice, your cuckoo !" 
 
 "All the same, my father has to pay for it as if 
 it were a tenor. Much good, indeed, does it do your 
 brothers and sisters that you understand the mech- 
 anism of a cuckoo ! Do you know that it means 
 twenty francs taken out of our legitimate portion?" 
 
 " Sordid soul !" cried Cornelius, swinging his bun- 
 dle of books around his head like a sling, "you de- 
 
BBLLE-PLAJSTTB AND CORNELIUS. 31 
 
 serve — but no, it is not your fault that you are 
 thus organized. Did I reproach you when you poi- 
 soned our ass in trying to purge her?" 
 
 "Oh, do not get angry, Cornelius," said Belle- 
 Plante, who was as saving of his epidermis as of 
 his money; "the blows that you would give me 
 would do you no good, and those that you would 
 receive would do you harm. Instead of quarrelling 
 like two grown persons, let us come back to our 
 hare. " 
 
 " Well, to come back to our hare ; I tell you that 
 in right this little quadruped belongs to Monsieur 
 Guillerand, and I will not suffer him to be wronged 
 in the matter; that is my way of looking at it." 
 
 "Yes, and a fine way of looking at it it is! I tell 
 you, my poor savant, with all the wit that Monsieur 
 Guillerand attributes to you, you will never be able 
 to look out for your interests." 
 
 " Look out for one's interests ! That is what they 
 all say ; they have no other phrase on their lips ; for 
 them it is an axiom of morality ; little care they for 
 honor, probity, justice, provided they look out for 
 their interests ! But the wolf too, when he kills the 
 lamb, looks out for his interests ! And what good 
 does it do a miser to look out for his interests?" 
 
 "Why, he lays up money." 
 
32 BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 "And again I ask: the money which he lays up, 
 what good does it do him? The money that one 
 lays up! why, it is money demonetized! .If your 
 strong-box is to remain irrevocably closed, it makes 
 little difference whether you throw into it golden 
 coins or bits of old crockery. There are people 
 whom we decorate with the name of sages ; well, if 
 we were to say to those people : 'You shall pass the 
 rest of your days in a cold, dark cell ; for bed you 
 shall have only the mouldy earth ; you shall live on 
 hard bread and foul water; this arch just above 
 the ground shall be your sky; spring and winter 
 shall pass over your head without your noticing it ; 
 your wife shall die, your children marry without 
 your knowledge; you shall hear no other sound 
 than the steps of your jailer on the stairway and 
 the grinding of your lock ; but you shall receive one 
 hundred francs a day, ' they would figure that at 
 the end of thirty years they would have laid up one 
 million one hundred and ninety -six thousand francs, 
 and they would accept the bargain joyfully. And 
 in your opinion, Belle-Plante, are generations any- 
 thing else than caravans that travel from the cra- 
 dle to the grave? Each one expends upon the jour- 
 ney the treasure of joy which God has given him : 
 young girls have bare shoulders, young men have 
 
BELLE-PLAIfTE AND COEN'ELIUS. 33 
 
 flaming eyes and lips moist with kisses ; they go 
 away together, dancing over the flowery green- 
 swards by the roadside ; the aged pluck and let fall 
 into their cup the withered roses of their crown, 
 and the decrepit are gently lulled, with half-closed 
 eyes, by the swinging of their litter ; but the miser 
 — do you know what he does? He fills a sack with 
 stones, he carries it from night till morning on his 
 shoulders, and on his arrival deposits it at the edge 
 of his grave." 
 
 "That is all very well, savant; but suppose one 
 falls sick?" 
 
 "Well, he goes to the hospital." 
 
 "And suppose one becomes infirm, lame, one- 
 armed, blind, and cannot work?" 
 
 "He goes to his nearest relative, to his father, to 
 his sister, and asks of them a place at the corner of 
 their hearth." 
 
 " Very well ! But suppose they will not receive 
 him?" 
 
 " Then he spits upon the threshold of their door, 
 and goes to beg his bread. " 
 
 "Yes, and a fine condition that is, a very honor- 
 able condition — that of a beggar!" 
 
 "And what have you to say against the beggars? 
 The lowest of beggars is happier than the richest 
 
34 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 of misers. If the beggar has a sou, he enjoys it; 
 but though the miser had a million, he would not 
 enjoy a single farthing of it. Do you know what 
 a beggar is, Belle-Plante? He is a man who does 
 not sow and who yet has bread, a man who builds no 
 houses and who has a roof, a man who has no money 
 at interest and who has an income, a man who has 
 no clothing-merchant or tailor and who has clothes. 
 Independence is the greatest of blessings ; that you 
 cannot deny ; well, is not the beggar the most inde- 
 pendent of all men? He is not fastened to the soil 
 by the roots of a profession ; when he finds it un- 
 comfortable where he is, he takes his sack and goes 
 elsewhere. He is like the bird that flies straight 
 ahead and finds, wherever he stops, grains to eat 
 and a green branch for shelter. The greatest and 
 the richest have duties from which they cannot free 
 themselves, occupations which they cannot post- 
 pone. You yourself, when you hear the rain beat- 
 ing against your shutters, or the wind howling in 
 your chimney, would quite as soon remain in bed as 
 go into the fields ; nevertheless the dogs are bark- 
 ing, the servants trampling in the yard : there is no 
 rest, out you must go ; but he, the beggar, has no 
 duties to tyrannize over him, no occupations to 
 push him on. He is Uke the cat which we feed, 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 35 
 
 and of which we ask nothing. No one can harness 
 him to an odious task; he does only what he likes. 
 If he is a poet, he sits in the sun and makes verses ; 
 if he is of a mechanical turn of mind, he traces in 
 the dust, with his stick, the plan of a machine which 
 will change the face of the world ; if he is a de- 
 throned king, he dreams of a treatise on the polity 
 of nations." 
 
 "But," said Belle-Plante, shrugging his shoul- 
 ders, "how about the vermin that devour him?" 
 
 "Well, what of it? He scratches himself." 
 
 "But observe, Cornelius, I have supposed him to 
 be one-armed." 
 
 " Then he rubs himself against a wall, like an ass 
 troubled by the flies. To scratch one's self ! Why, 
 that is a felicity peculiar to the beggar, and forbid- 
 den to the rich ! If the king knew the pleasure that 
 there is in scratching one's self, he would want ver- 
 min too. Create in a man a continual need and 
 give him the means of satisfying it, and he will be 
 the happiest of all beings. As for: me, I am not 
 ambitious : if God will grant me the favor of a lit- 
 tle pimple that shall itch throughout the centuries, 
 and leave me one finger with which to scratch it, 
 I will ask no other paradise." 
 
 Belle-Plante, contrary to his custom, allowed 
 
36 BELLE- PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 Cornelius to go his own pace. Meanwhile he was 
 hunting for an argument such as would have an 
 influence upon his mind. When he thought that 
 he had found what he wanted, he stopped him 
 short. 
 
 " Permit me, Cornelius ; I have a little ohjection 
 to offer. You say that in right this little quad- 
 ruped on my shoulder here belongs to Monsieur 
 Guillerand; hut your steel rod which he confis- 
 cated the other day, in right did that belong to 
 him?" 
 
 "By no means," answered Cornelius, whose clear, 
 straightforward mind never rebelled against a solid 
 argument; "to confiscate is not to acquire; that is 
 written in all the codes. Looked at in that light, 
 this would be a restitution on the part of Monsieur 
 Guillerand. " 
 
 "Evidently," said Belle-Plante. "It is the Oar- 
 nival season, the time consecrated to gluttony and 
 folly ; there are a multitude of epicures in search of 
 game ; we shall easily sell our hare for three francs 
 ten sous, and perhaps something besides." 
 
 "My steel rod cost me thirty sotfs, " said Corne- 
 lius; "then I shall have to give him back five sovs; 
 or, that the article may change in nature as little 
 as possible, I will buy him five or six larks. " 
 
BELLB-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 37 
 
 "That's right; short reckonings make long 
 friends," said Belle-Plante, fully determined to see 
 that Cornelius should have nothing to restore. 
 
 "But," said Cornelius, "I have an objection to 
 offer." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Belle-Plante, burying liis 
 hands in his pockets majestically, and looking at 
 him as a victor looks at the crowd from the height 
 of his car of triumph. 
 
 " It is that I am in no humor to remain for an 
 hour in the market, planted by the side of your 
 hare like a stake ; my biographer would be sure to 
 refer to it. " 
 
 "Indeed it would be a stain upon" your name! 
 But rest easy,, you will have nothing to do but 
 pocket your money. I, who have nothing to fear 
 from biographers, will charge myself with the task, 
 especially as you would give your hare to the first 
 cook who might come along to haggle for it, or 
 perhaps to the first beggar who should excite your 
 pity in the street." 
 
 On reaching the bridge of Chiches, the two 
 brothers separated. Belle-Plante took the road to 
 the market, and Cornelius went to wait upon the 
 promenade. An hour later Belle-Plante came back, 
 jingling coin in his hands. 
 
38 BELLE-PLAKTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 " Here!" said he to Cornelius, giving him a hand- 
 ful of sous, "there is your share." 
 
 Our friend Cornelius would not have suspected 
 the good faith even of a sheriff's officer. If he dis- 
 trusted his brother, I beg of you not to bear him ill 
 will on that account ; it was because he knew him, 
 for men with lofty and generous souls distrust only 
 those whom they know. So Cornehus began to 
 count his money. 
 
 '"Tis not worth while counting it," said Belle- 
 Plante; "you have twenty-five sous for your 
 share." 
 
 "That is not right," said Cornelius; "half of 
 seventy is thirty-five." 
 
 " Yes, but forty-nine sous was all that I could 
 get for our hare. I have given you half a sou more 
 than your share ; but with a brother one does not 
 figure too closely." 
 
 The fact was that Belle-Plante had sold the hare 
 for four francs, and even then the wretch had put 
 with the money of the good Cornelius a counterfeit 
 which he had been keeping for eighteen months. 
 
 "But," said Cornelius, "I thought that hares 
 brought a higher price." 
 
 "The error of a savant whose nose is always 
 plunged in his books! Besides, our hare was as 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELlfS. 
 
 39 
 
 thin as a teal ; you did not notice that, Cornelius. 
 I would bet that he was fifty years old. He must 
 
 ^■<jk -X'Ji 
 
 CORNELItrS AGAIN COUNTED HIS SOUS. 
 
 have been some old hare, who had had a difficulty 
 with his master and given him the slip. " 
 Cornelius again began to count his sous. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Cornelius, as we said, had again begun to count 
 his sous. Another minute, perhaps another second, 
 and he would find the unfortunate counterfeit. 
 There was only one way of avoiding this catastro- 
 phe — that of dratping our learned friend into a sci- 
 entific discussion. Belle-Plante, who was a little 
 Hannibal in the matter of strategy, was equal to 
 the emergency. 
 
 " I never saw so many hares in the market," said' 
 he. " If the invention of gunpowder was fatal to 
 anybody, it certainly was to the hares. Do you not 
 think that in the end the poachers will destroy this 
 honest race of herbivora?" 
 
 Cornelius, on hearing these words from Belle- 
 Plante, quickly stuffed his money into his pocket. 
 
 "Destroy a race of herbivora?" he cried, after 
 collecting his thoughts for a moment ; " the ques- 
 tion is very serious, and " 
 
 "Well, "said Belle-Plante, satisfied with having 
 attained his object, and foreseeing the shower of 
 arguments which would be poured upon him, " since 
 
EELLB-PLANTE AKD COENELllTS. 41 
 
 the question is so serious, let us assume that I have 
 said nothing about it." 
 
 "Not at all," said Cornelius; "it is too late to re- 
 tract, and I should be a wretch if I should allow it. 
 You said that the hunters would finally destroy a 
 race of herbivora. I take note of your words." 
 
 "Perhaps you will not sue me for damages if I 
 refuse to listen to you?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly not; but you opened the wine, and 
 you must drink it. Do j'ou believe, Belle-Plante, 
 in spontaneous generation?" 
 
 " What is spontaneous generation? Is it an ani- 
 mal that goes upon the water?" 
 
 " I ask you if you believe that the earth contains 
 within its bosom a creative power which can pro- 
 duce beings without the aid of any other action." 
 
 " I do not seek difficulties where there are none. 
 I believe that to make a calf it takes a bull and a 
 cow, and a bean to make a pod of beans." 
 
 " So you believe that there are beans because God, 
 after having made a bean, amused himself by plant- 
 ing it in the earth ; that there are calves because, 
 after having made a bull, he extracted one of its 
 ribs while it was asleep and made a cow therefrom?" 
 
 " Oh, you bore me with your cows and your 
 beans!" 
 
i% BBLLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 
 
 " So much the better if I bore you ! I here you, 
 then you listen to me. I will profit by the atten- 
 tion which you are willing to grant me to ask you 
 if you believe in the deluge." 
 
 " What comes of believing in the deluge?" 
 
 " Many advantages which it would take too long 
 to enumerate now ; but tell me, do you believe in 
 the deluge?" 
 
 " Well, yes, I believe in the deluge. " 
 
 " Then, the deluge having made a clean sweep of 
 all beings, if you do not believe in spontaneous gen- 
 eration, you will have to admit that Noah must 
 have procured, either by himself or through his 
 correspondents, a pair of the most microscopic in- 
 sects, the sex of which he had previously verified, 
 as well as the seed of the plants the most " 
 
 " If I had known as much," said Belle-Plante, " I 
 would not have believed in the deluge." 
 
 " Well, I pass the deluge f but you will be no fur- 
 ther advanced for that, my poor friend. It is 
 proved, according to recent discoveries in geology, 
 that the earth has passed through different periods. 
 At first it was in the gaseous state, floating in 
 space like an immense whirlwind of dust ; then in- 
 candescent ; then as soft and warm as a baked ap- 
 ple. The materials that form its nucleus have re- 
 
BELLB-PLANTB AKD COENELIUS. 43 
 
 mained in a state of ebullition; but the upper lay- 
 ers gradually cooling off, it has become what it is 
 to-day — a state which I might compare to that of a 
 hard egg which is not entirely cooked, and of which 
 the yolk is still liquid." 
 
 " Oh !" said Belle-Plante, " do you intend to con- 
 tinue long in that vein?" 
 
 " Why, what I have yet to say will take a good 
 hour and a half." 
 
 " Well, I can tell you that I am in no humor to 
 give an hour and a half gratis to listening to you." 
 
 " You wish to practise an extortion, Belle-Piante; 
 th^at is hardly delicate on your part. But how 
 much do you ask for an hour and a half of your at- 
 tention?" 
 
 " Five sous; do you think that that would be too 
 .much?" 
 
 " Here are six," said Cornelius, " and I go on." 
 
 " Fool !" said Belle-Plante to himself ; " I am sorry 
 I didn'b ask him ten." 
 
 " The inhabitants of the earth, when it was in a 
 gaseous state, " continued Cornelius, " could scarcely 
 have been more than animated bladders swimming 
 in the atmosphere. When it had passed into the 
 incandescent state, the animals and vegetables 
 must have been able to live in a roasted condition. 
 
44 BELLE-PLANTE AND COElfELIUS. 
 
 Thus, instead of an' ox, one would have seen an 
 enormous piece of roast beef, browsing off of fried 
 herbs in the prairie, and the apple trees, instead of 
 fruit, must have produced compotes. My opin- 
 ion differs perhaps from that of the geologists, 
 but " 
 
 '' One moment, Cornelius ; I make the stipulation 
 that I shall be permitted to yawn. If ypu refuse me 
 this distraction, I warn you that I shall be obliged 
 to charge you a higher price." 
 
 " You can yawn as much as you like, provided 
 you listen. You understand that the animals that 
 exist to-day have not been able " 
 
 " That is understood in advance ; let us pass the 
 animals that exist to-day ; do me that favor, my 
 good brother." 
 
 " Well, I pass them then. They will tell me per- 
 haps " 
 
 " If you intend to answer all that they may tell 
 you, there is no reason why you should ever 
 finish. " 
 
 " All right, then, I leap over all objections, and 
 enter into the heart of the discussion. I know very 
 well that a male hare and a female hare produce 
 leverets. I see clearly the bean which I have planted 
 come up from the earth, blossom, and procreate a 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COEKEMUS. 45 
 
 pod of young beans ; but then who can aflSrm that 
 there are no hares born spontaneously in the fur- 
 rows, and that there are no beans that have neither 
 father nor mother?" 
 
 " Oh ! Cornelius, what nonsense are you giving 
 me now?" 
 
 " Why, my dear fellow, that's a paradox; if you 
 were to read Jean-Jacques Eousseau, you would 
 find many others. But I pass to more positive ar- 
 guments. Suppose at the summit of the mountain 
 A, a hole B, which the rains from heaven have filled 
 with water. At the end of a fortnight a multitude 
 of little frogs, which I will designate by the letters 
 A', B', all of the same size, as if born at the same 
 time, are splashing about in this mud. Who, then, 
 amused himself in carrying frog-spawn to the top 
 of this mountain?" 
 
 " Mercy !" said Belle-Plante, indulging in a yawn 
 of the widest dimensions, " I prefer to give you back 
 a sou and have you end." 
 
 " Eecreant !" cried Cornelius. " And what would 
 you do then if you were listening to a funeral ora- 
 tion? The bargain is concluded and must be car- 
 ried out. Suppose, again, a prince just born. All 
 those near him are clean and free of all baseness ; 
 nevertheless, immediately his, hair begins to grow. 
 
46 BBLLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 this head must wear a diadem. Do you hear me, 
 Belle-Plante? 
 
 " 'Et la garde qui veille aux barrieres du Louvre 
 N'en defend paa nos Eois.' " 
 
 " Who, then, scattered over this consecrated chief 
 this unclean dust? Again, here is a young man, 
 healthy and strong, killed with the stroke of a sword. 
 They enclose his body in a leaden coffin, well and 
 duly soldered; nevertheless " 
 
 Here Cornelius perceived that his audience had 
 taken flight. 
 
 " Ho there, Belle-Plante ! come back ; only two 
 or three more sentences, and I am done. For so 
 small a matter you should not break your engage- 
 ments. " 
 
 But Belle-Plante was already far away. 
 
 " The brigand !" cried Cornelius; "he has stolen 
 my conclusion; but I will find him again to-night." 
 
 That afternoon, in fact, the two brothers met 
 again on their way home. 
 
 "So!" said Cornelius, "you played me a dirty 
 trick this morning ; I had paid you in advance to 
 listen to me until the end, and you ran away like a 
 scamp. " 
 
 " What !" answered Belle-Plante, with a roguish 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 47 
 
 air, " then you noticed that I had disappeared? 
 Well, you see, you were too tiresome, my dear fel- 
 low. I had rather thresh wheat an hour than listen 
 to you five minutes." 
 
 "Well, then, you are going to return my money. " 
 
 " Yes, rely upon it ; why did you pay me in ad- 
 vance? That will teach you not to let go of your 
 cow before the cowherd has blown his horn." 
 
 "Well, you are a thief." 
 
 "What do I care whether you call me a thief, 
 now that I have your six sous?" 
 
 The idea that he had been robbed did not trouble 
 Cornelius, but that, after being robbed, he should 
 be made sport of was more insolence than he could 
 stand. He rushed upon Belle-Plante, seized him 
 by the collar, and shook him until it seemed as if 
 his ears would fall off. 
 
 "Eelease me, Cornelius, I beg of you," said Belle- 
 Plante, " you will tear me to pieces. You see that I 
 do not defend myself ; it would be an act of coward- 
 ice which your biographer would mention, if you 
 were to beat a person who refuses to defend him- 
 self." 
 
 And, as Cornelius continued to shake him like a 
 tree which one wishes to relieve of its fruit, he 
 shouted : 
 
48 BBLLE-PLANTB AND COENBLIUS. | 
 
 " Cain ! Do you wish, then, to kill your hrother? 
 Help ! Murder ! He is disjointing me ! He is kill- 
 ing me ! I shall be terribly sick after this !" 
 
 " Give me back my money!" cried Cornelius, in a 
 voice of thunder. 
 
 " Well, I will listen to your conclusion ; will that 
 satisfy you?" 
 
 "My money! my money! When I should once 
 get started, you would slink away again. " 
 
 " I give you my word of honor, and my most sa- 
 cred word of honor too, that I will listen to you 
 conscientiously as long as you see fit to talk." 
 
 "Your word of honor, Belle-Plante ! Your word 
 of honor and the clack of this mill are to me the 
 same thing." 
 
 A luminous idea came to Cornelius : he seized 
 Belle-Plante 's hat. 
 
 " Now, " said he, "I will continue our discussion 
 on spontaneous generation ; but in my turn I give 
 you my word of honor that, if you show the least 
 sign of wishing to escape, if you do not remain 
 within eighteen inches of my person, if you yawn, 
 if you shrug your shoulders, if you cough, if you 
 sneeze — in short, if you manifest the least impa- 
 tience, I will throw your hat into the Yonne, and 
 put a stone in it that it may sink more quickly." 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND COKITELIUS. 49 
 
 "Soon," said Belle-Plante, "you will stop people 
 on the highway and present a pistol at their throat 
 to make them listen to you." 
 
 "Not so much argument," said Cornelius; "at- 
 tention, I begin." 
 
 Happily for Belle-Plante, they were just then 
 joined by the little Desallemagnes, who was on her 
 way home from the fair with Jeanne, her servant, 
 and mounted on Madelon, her donkey. As soon as 
 she was near Cornelius, she said : 
 
 " Jeanne, stop Madelon, that I may get down. I 
 wish to take a walk with Monsieur Cornelius." 
 
 " Oh, fie !" said the good Jeanne, a girl of twelve, 
 "to take a walk in company with a young 
 man !" 
 
 "And what harm is there in "that, my good 
 Jeanne? I know girls a head taller than I who 
 dance all night with young people; and besides, 
 these young people are not their neighbors, as Mon- 
 sieur Cornelius is ours." 
 
 Cornelius was gallant when he wished to be. He 
 stopped Madelon, took Louise in his arms, and 
 placed her as gently as possible on the ground. 
 
 "Well," said the little girl, smoothing her hair, 
 which Madelon's rather rapid pace had disarranged, 
 and repairing the disorder of her dress like a co- 
 
50 BBLLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 
 
 quette of twenty years, " did you have a good time 
 at the fair, Monsieur Cornelius?" 
 
 "Very good, Louise; here, see what I bought 
 you." 
 
 " What !" said Louise, hastily removing with her 
 little trembling hands the wrapper from a roll of 
 ribbons, "you thought of me? How kind you are. 
 Monsieur Cornelius." 
 
 " And you, Louise, did you think of your friend 
 Cornelius?" 
 
 "Oh! yes, almost all day, and if I bought you 
 nothing, it is because my father would not give me 
 any money." 
 
 "Monsieur Cornelius has been cheated," said 
 Jeanne, after examining the ribbon; "it is faded 
 and out of fashion." 
 
 " Well, " said Cornelius, "if this ribbon doesn't 
 suit Louise, let her make garters of it, and I shall 
 be perfectly satisfied." 
 
 "What are you talking about?" said Louise. 
 "Why, this ribbon is charming! You have excel- 
 lent taste. Monsieur Cornelius. I shall put on your 
 ribbon on Sunday to go to high mass." 
 
 "In that case," said Cornelius, "I shall go to 
 high mass too." 
 
 "Yes, come," said Louise; "there will be no 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 51 
 
 sermon, and I will keep a place for you in our 
 pew. " 
 
 "Little nuisance!" said Jeanne to herself; "there 
 are no longer any children. I must tell Monsieur 
 Desallemagnes. " 
 
 "And you," said Belle-Plante, whom this conver- 
 sation tormented, "what did you buy for yourself, 
 savant?" 
 
 "Here," said Cornelius; "guess what this is." 
 
 " God forgive me, I believe it is a piece of old iron. " 
 
 " Poor simpleton ! it is a rod of magnetic iron. I 
 will bet that at your age you do not know the prop- 
 erty of the magnet." 
 
 "I much prefer to know what should be given to 
 an ox when he has the colic." 
 
 "Well, I know. Monsieur Cornelius, " said Louise, 
 in a joyful tone; "the magnet attracts iron, and 
 with it compasses are made. See, I do not forget 
 what you teach me." 
 
 "Thank you, Louise," said Cornelius. 
 
 "You would do much better, mademoiselle, to 
 ask Jeanne to teach you to make cream cheeses." 
 
 "You are very polite. Monsieur Belle-Plante," 
 said Louise, with a pretty pout. 
 
 " You will observe, Louise, that Belle-Plante does 
 not pretend to make axioms. " 
 
53 BBLLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 " I make better axioms than you. Though you 
 should be as learned as Monsieur Guillerand himself, 
 how much better oflE would you be?" 
 
 " Say rather as learned as the Abbe NoUet, imbe- 
 cile! Why, then, they would say, in speaking of 
 me, the learned, the illustrious, the profound Cor- 
 nelius; kings would send me snuff-boxes; they 
 would erect a statue to me in the public square of 
 Armes, and the mayor, in his scarf and escorted by 
 firemen, would deliver a discourse. You think that 
 is not worth studying for?" 
 
 "Glory," said the sententious Belle-Plante, "is 
 not eaten with oil and vinegar. It is not through 
 the ears that one grows fat. A savant out at el- 
 bows, though he were as profound as the well of 
 Varvoucille, and a mouldy book are the same thing. 
 Go tell the baker to give you a loaf of bread on 
 credit, since you are the inventor of gunpowder, 
 and you will see what answer he will make. You 
 will be far advanced when you have on the public 
 square of Armes a statue in Chevroche stone!" 
 
 "In marble, if you please, Belle-Plante." 
 
 "Well, in marble then, savant; that will not 
 prevent the flies from specking your august nose, 
 or the dogs from lifting their feet along your ped- 
 estal." 
 
BELLB-PLANTE ANB COENELIUS. 63 
 
 " I recognize you there, .Monsieur Belle -Plante," 
 said Louise, "you who sell the apples and walnuts 
 of your breakfast to the village children." 
 
 "And do you think me wrong, mademoiselle? 
 That is the way to look out for one's interests. I 
 had rather be called the rich Belle-Plante than the 
 profound Belle-Plante. If I am not spoken of in 
 the works on mechanics, they will speak of me at 
 the fairs, in the markets, at the auction sales ; if 
 the savants take off their hats to Cornelius, the bank- 
 ers will bow before the signature of Belle-Plante, 
 and that is much better. That is something finer 
 than a statue to be erected to you when you are 
 dead ! The difference between our two glories will 
 be that your Cornelius will be able to enjoy his only 
 in his coffin, while I shall enjoy mine during my 
 life. You would be far advanced, you. Mademoiselle 
 Desallemagnes, if during your sleep a bouquet of 
 roses were to be attached to your night-cap and 
 taken away again before you were awake." 
 
 "All the same," said Louise, "I should always 
 prefer to be the wife of a savant rather than the 
 wife of a ploughman." 
 
 "And I," said Belle-Plante, " would much rather 
 marry a good knitter than a learned woman." 
 
 "You," said Cornelius, "would marry the Abbe 
 
54 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 NoUet in person if he would bring you a dowry of 
 fifty thousand francs." 
 
 "But he would further stipulate," added Louise, 
 "that the learned Abbe should learn to knit." 
 
 Just then they reached the entrance to the village. 
 
 Jeanne, who thought much of propriety, obliged 
 Louise to mount her donkey again. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 A FEW weeks later, M. Guillerand, making a pre- 
 text of desiring to inform himself regarding the 
 health of Master Belle-Plante, in whom he felt the 
 keenest and most disinterested interest, invited 
 himself to breakfast at the farm. 
 
 If I were under contract to supply feuilletons by 
 the square yard, I would follow the example of a 
 sign painter whom I knew, who, being paid at so 
 much a letter, wrote the word epicier (grocer) in 
 the following fashion : > haipissier; I should describe 
 M. Guillerand to you from the upper extremity of 
 his three-cornered hat to the lower extremity of his 
 ribbed worsted stockings, stopping a reasonable time 
 at the intermediate objects; but, alas! such is not 
 the case ; ink and paper grow dearer every day, and 
 I have the disadvantage of furnishing them. So 
 you will picture M. Guillerand to yourself as you 
 like ; I give you full liberty in this respect, simply 
 telling you that his face was enormously red in the 
 middle. 
 
 M. Guillerand breakfasted with a very good ap- 
 
 55 
 
56 BELLE-PLANTE AND COBNBLIUS. 
 
 petite, as he always did when he breakfasted with 
 others; hut the devil, who had a grudge against 
 him because he was the honor of our choir, put it 
 into the head of Master Belle-Plante to ask him if 
 he was satisfied with Frangois. 
 
 "Perfectly satisfied; one could not he more so. 
 Monsieur Belle-Plante ! You must remember that 
 last year he took seven first prizes, to say nothing 
 of the second prizes which give the right only to a 
 simple crown." 
 
 "I remember, Monsieur GuUlerand, and I thank 
 you much, but " 
 
 "What, Monsieur Belle-Plante, you thank me! 
 And for what do you thank me, if you please? If 
 it is for the zeal which I have shown in instructing 
 your son in belles-lettres, informing his mind, that 
 is, in adorning his mind — a devil of a phrase ! I 
 can never express it exactly — and informing his 
 heart, I receive your thanks with pleasure, and I 
 will even say with pride, for they are merited ; but if 
 it is for a favor that I am supposed to have accorded 
 to your son, I repudiate them as an insult; yes, 
 Monsieur, as an insult. To say that favors can be 
 bought at my school ! You are not aware. Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante, of the pain that you give me ! Eeally, 
 you do not know me. Far from me. those guilty 
 
BELLE-PLAKTE AND COEITBLIUS. 57 
 
 compliances which most of my fellow-teachers, and 
 I will even say, all my fellow-teachers, show toward 
 their pupils. I had rather die than lend myself to 
 such baseness." 
 
 "I am well convinced of it, Monsieur Guillerand; 
 but how does it happen that all your scholars take 
 prizes?" 
 
 " How does it happen, Monsieur? My reply is as 
 simple as it is natural; because they all deserve 
 them. And it is that which has given my estab- 
 hshment the reputation which it enjoys throughout 
 the kingdom and beyond. With us there are no 
 feeble subjects, no first or last, no laggards : all my 
 scholars go together and at the same pace ; and if 
 there were one who, for any cause whatever, could 
 not follow the others, I would dismiss him though 
 he were a prince of the blood. Yes, Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante, I would get rid of him as in Sparta they got 
 rid of the deformed and unhealthy children by 
 throwing them into the Eurotas. Are you satisfied. 
 Monsieur Belle- Plante?" 
 
 "I shall be better satisfied when you have told 
 me how Frangois gets along." 
 
 The sweat began to appear upon the schoolmas- 
 ter's face, but the few scattered drops of water 
 were the only indication of his anxiety. You could 
 
58 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKlirELIUS. 
 
 certainly place him, like common men, in a 
 very embarrassing situation, but disconcert him 
 never. 
 
 " I repeat, Monsieur Belle-Plan te, that I am very 
 well satisfied with Monsieur Frangois ; he is far ad- 
 vanced for his age." 
 
 Now it should be remembered that Frangois was 
 sixteen. 
 
 " He is very strong in the catechism. " 
 
 "Let us see," said the farmer. "Come, Fran- 
 gois, my boy, why did God create you and put you 
 into the world?" 
 
 "To buy cheap and sell dear, my papa." 
 
 "Good! very good! bravo, Frangois!" shouted 
 Monsieur Guillerand. " See, Monsieur Belle-Plante, 
 with what confidence he answers ; he is a real Levite. 
 I must have him join the cathedral choir, as I joined 
 it myself. To your son's health. Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante ! You have a little white wine there which 
 is by no means bad ; is it of your own growing, Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante?" 
 
 The farmer had taken it into his head that he 
 would question his son, and there was no way of 
 inducing him to abandon his purpose. 
 
 "Truly," said he, "Frangois did not make a bad 
 answer; 'to buy cheap and sell dear' — if that is not 
 
BBLLB-PLAKTE AND OORHTELIUS. 59 
 
 in the catechism, they ought to put it there. But 
 still it seems to me that it is not there." 
 
 "Pardon me, Monsieur Belle-Plante, it is there; 
 your desires have been anticipated ; they have put 
 it there. You see, the catechism has been much 
 changed since you went to school. 'To love him, 
 serve him, and thereby to obtain eternal life. ' Oh, 
 to be sure, that is no longer there ! Eternal life is 
 out of fashion ; it is no longer in our morals. This 
 reform is due to the writings of Arouet Voltaire and 
 Jean -Jacques Rousseau. Have you read Voltaire 
 and Jean-Jacques, Monsieur Belle-Plante? Vol- 
 taire, now there was a philosopher for jon ! but 
 Jean -Jacques is a logician who has no common 
 sense, a moralist who flies into a passion over noth- 
 ing, a writer who is always in a sweat." 
 
 " Possibly, Monsieur Guillerand ; but how is Fran- 
 gois on figures?" 
 
 "Oh! far advanced, Monsieur Belle-Plante; one 
 could not be further advanced at his age ; fractions 
 have no secrets for him ; he is one of my best math- 
 ematicians. " 
 
 "Well, Frangois," said Master Belle-Plante, "do 
 me this little sum ; a man has two eyes ; they put 
 out one; how many has he left?" 
 
 " He is one-eyed, " said Prangois. 
 
60 BELLE-PLAlirTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 " Good ! very good !" shouted Monsieur Guillerand, 
 who was stifling in his greatcoat; "well, are you 
 satisfied now, Monsieur Belle-Plante? A total ex- 
 pressed by an adjective — how elegant that is ! How 
 pretty it is ! Only your children. Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante, can find such answers. Monsieur d'Alem- 
 bert of the Encyclopaedia could not have answered 
 better." 
 
 "To tell the truth. Monsieur Guillerand, I should 
 be better satisfied if Frangois had calculated that 
 for me with figures." 
 
 " Well, Frangois, my friend, calculate it with fig- 
 ures since your father pushes his requirements to 
 that point. A man has two eyes ; they put out one ; 
 from two take one; you understand me!" 
 
 Frangois took a piece of charcoal, and after scrib- 
 bling a few figures on the tile floor opened his mouth 
 very wide and said : "Three." 
 
 Monsieur Guillerand burst into a violent fit of 
 ooughing ; but he could not prevent this unfortu- 
 nate total from reaching the ears of Master Belle- 
 Plante. 
 
 "Very good, Frangois!" said he; "and you. Mon- 
 sieur Guillerand, I congratulate you on the way in 
 which you teach arithmetic to your pupils." 
 
 "Permit me. Monsieur Belle-Plante, I teach my 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 61 
 
 pupils to calculate in francs, sous and deniers; but 
 you ask your son a question in physics, natural his- 
 tory, physiology, what not. How do you expect cal- 
 culation to get a grip upon such, incongruities? A 
 man has two eyes; they put out one; what rela- 
 tion, I ask you, has that with arithmetic? Do you 
 think that it was to solve such questions that the 
 Arabs invented numerals? 'He is one-eyed,' your 
 son answers you. That is a clear, square, precise 
 reply, which shows in Frangois a great power of 
 observation. At his age, you. Monsieur Belle-Plante, 
 perhaps would have answered, 'He is blind, 'and 
 yet it is on me that you shower your reproaches. 
 'I congratulate you. Monsieur Guillerand, on the 
 way in which you teach arithmetic to your pupils!' 
 That expression is a crime. Monsieur Belle-Plante.. 
 Is not the teacher's profession sufficiently painful 
 in itself without " 
 
 " Come, let us not get angry, Monsieur Guillerand ; 
 if Frangois does not know how to calculate, well we 
 will buy him a ready reckoner." 
 
 "That's right; let us not get angry. Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante; let us drink, let us eat, let us break- 
 fast, as Horace says, and let us talk no more about 
 education. When life offers us here and there a 
 rose to smell, let us not brutally strip it of its leaves 
 
62 BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 with our own hands. This ham is perfect, "Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante." 
 
 "A httle patience, Monsieur Guiller and ; I should 
 like to know how Frangois reads.' 
 
 "Very well; indeed, one cannot read better, Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante. He reads very fluently in Latin. 
 Have you any Latin authors here?" 
 
 "I have the psalms of David somewhere." 
 
 "Bad Latin that. Monsieur Belle-Plante! It 
 would spoil your son's pronunciation." 
 
 " Well, I have just received a letter from Clam- 
 ecy ; I should be much pleased to have Frangois 
 read it to me (me la Use)." 
 
 " Me la Mt, Monsieur Belle-Plante ; let us speak 
 French, if you please. Not that one may not be a 
 very honest man and yet be guilty of errors in 
 grammar ; but, you see, in my capacity of teacher, I 
 am obliged to enforce respect for the language. To 
 commit a solecism in presence of a schoolmaster is 
 like blaspheming in presence of a priest ; and Mon- 
 sieur the Cure, who esteems me highly, recently 
 said to me on this subject " 
 
 " Come, Frangois, read me this letter, and make 
 haste." 
 
 Frangois, grumbling, took the letter, and, draw- 
 ing near the window, began : 
 
BELLE-PLAKTB AND COENELIUS. 63 
 
 "Mon^, Mons — , Monsi — , Monsieur— 
 
 "Very good," said Monsieur Guillerand; "cour- 
 age, Frarigois!" 
 
 " Monsieur Bette — , Botte — , Butte — , Bitte " 
 
 "Monsieur Belle-Plante, imbecile!" cried the 
 farmer. " You natural-born ass, you do not kno^v 
 how to read even your own name ! I reiterate my 
 compliments, Monsieur Guillerand." 
 
 The unfortunate schoolmaster seized the letter, 
 and, having glanced over it, cried : 
 
 "Indeed, I am not astonished that Frangois is 
 unable to decipher this : it is a letter from my friend 
 Page ; I am the only person in the bailiwick who 
 can read his writing. Just imagine. Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante, the sheriff lately sent for me to read 
 a note of two lines which this lawyer had addressed 
 to him. And yet you were going to get angry with 
 me! Poor humanity! that's the way we all are; 
 we judge first and compare afterward." 
 
 " But I can read this letter very well, " said the 
 farmer. 
 
 " Then I congratulate you, Monsieur Belle-Plante. 
 I will call upon my friend to-morrow expressly to 
 inform him that you can read his scribbling. He 
 will be clelighted to know that there are two men 
 in the vicinity capable of deciphering his fly-tracks. " 
 
64 BBLLE-PLANTB AKD COBNELIUS. 
 
 "All the same it appears," jaid the farmer, "that 
 Belle-Plante can read only Latin. Those who have 
 dealings with him will have to be notified that they 
 must write to him in that language. But how does 
 he write? He never brings me his copy-books." 
 
 " What, Frangois !" said Monsieur Guillerand, re- 
 lieved of an enormous weight by this information, 
 " you refuse your worthy father the satisfaction of 
 judging for himself of your progress in penmanship ! 
 That is not right, my friend. I declare to you. 
 Monsieur Belle-Plante, that Frangois has one of the 
 prettiest hands in my establishment; the mayor's 
 son, young Christophe, does not write as well as 
 Frangois, by any means. I would give six francs 
 out of my own pocket to have you see his handwrit- 
 ing; your paternal heart would thrill with joy. 
 Say, Frangois, why do you not show your copy-books 
 to your father?" 
 
 "Because I sell them to the butter merchant," 
 said Frangois. 
 
 "Good! very good!" cried Monsieur Guillerand. 
 " How fortunate you are. Monsieur Belle-Plante, 
 to have a son who sells his copy-books to the butter 
 merchant ! At so tender an age, to have such a 
 disposition to order and economy ! Are you aware 
 that that is not common, my dear Monsieur? Oh! 
 
BELLE-PLANTE and CORNELIUS. 65 
 
 it is in vain to talk, order and economy will always 
 be the best of all the sciences. A brilliant fortune 
 which we suppose to rest on a firm foundation ends 
 in bankruptcy, and common people ask how that 
 happened. But it is a very simple thing. The 
 owner of this fortune was lacking in order and 
 economy; it has evaporated, no one knows how, 
 like a vase from which the water oozes through an 
 unperceived crack." 
 
 "What you say is true," said the farmer; "but, 
 if Frangois is not a great scholar, I hope that you 
 are better satisfied with Cornelius." 
 
 "I am as well satisfied with Monsieur Cornelius 
 as with Monsieur Frangois, save that the former 
 has not the same disposition to order and economy 
 that his brother has. On the other hand, he excels 
 in taking a clock to pieces ; an apprentice who had 
 been three years in a shop could not do it better." 
 
 "I understand," said the farmer; "you wish to 
 remind me that I owe you eighteen francs for the 
 cuckoo which the scamp spoiled for you." 
 
 " No, Monsieur Belle-Plante, I do not wish to re- 
 mind you of anything at all ; I should be in despair 
 if you were to attribute to me such an intention. 
 You will pay me when you find it convenient, and 
 I could consent to receive your money only in case 
 
66 bellS-plantb and COKNBLIUS. 
 
 you were determined to acquit yourself of this bag- 
 atelle directly." 
 
 "Since that suits you," said the farmer, "I will 
 count out your eighteen francs." 
 
 And, pulling from his pocket a big leather bag, 
 he placed a louis on the table. 
 
 "There are six francs coming back to you," said 
 Monsieur Guillerand ; " if you like. Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante, the balance shall stand for the first wheel 
 that Monsieur Cornelius may lose." 
 
 "Not at all," said the farmer; "if Cornelius mal- 
 treats your cuckoo again, you will have to settle 
 the matter with him. Whatever he finds he takes 
 to pieces ; you must cure him of this mania, Mon- 
 sieur Guillerand." 
 
 "It is very wrong. Monsieur Cornelius," said 
 Monsieur Guillerand, " to take to pieces what you 
 cannot put together again. Do you know why the 
 machinery of this world goes so badly, why it some- 
 times moves so fast that we have violets in the 
 month of January, and at other times so slow that 
 we have snow at Easter? It is because the devil, 
 in trying to take it to pieces, has got it out of or- 
 der." 
 
 Just then a servant brought in a roast hare of 
 exquisite flavor; at sight of this M. Guillerand's 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND COEN-BLItJS. 67 
 
 face shone like a field of grass after a shower, 
 for he liked nothing so well as roast hare except 
 stewed hare. But Cornelius and Belle-Plante, who 
 were nibbling their bread at the corner of the fire, 
 although they too were very fond of hare, did not 
 share his joy. 
 
 "There comes a dish," said Cornelius to Belle- 
 Plante, "which will bring us misfortune; if you say 
 so, we will draw lots to see who shall pay for the 
 two." 
 
 "Give me five sows," said Belle-Plante, "and I 
 take upon myself the responsibility of the whole 
 affair." 
 
 Cornelius raised three fingers, and closed the 
 others. 
 
 "I understand; you have only three sous, you 
 prodigal; well, give me the three at any rate, and 
 owe me two." 
 
 Cornelius nodded assent, and the contract was as 
 solid as if it had been drawn by a notary. 
 
 "Wait!" said Belle-Plante, "let us understand 
 one another ; it is included in the bargain that your 
 claim of six sous on account of the spontaneous gen- 
 eration difficulty is abandoned." 
 
 Cornelius, with a second nod, assented to this 
 proposition. 
 
68 BBLLE-PLAHiTTE AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 "How do you like this hare?" said the farmer to 
 his guest. 
 
 " Excellent, Monsieur Belle -Plante ; irreproacha- 
 ble, sublime ; my friend Arthus himself would relish 
 it. It's a pity to eat it in Lent ; it is a dish fit for 
 the Carnival." 
 
 " And the hare that I sent you lately, were you 
 satisfied with it?" 
 
 "How! what!" cried M. Guillerand, palpitating 
 with emotion; "what hare are you talking about?" 
 
 " Why, about a hare that I sent you by Frangois. 
 Is it possible that you did not receive it?" 
 
 "Alas! no," said M. Guillerand, in deep dismay, 
 "I did not receive it." 
 
 "Possibly it has passed out of your mind; I am 
 very sure that I sent it to you." 
 
 "What, Monsieur BeUe-Plante, that has passed 
 out of my mind ! Do such things, then, pass out of 
 your mind? A good hare stew, such as Madame 
 Guillerand knows how to make, or a good roast, 
 larded as she lards them, marks an epoch in the 
 year! We say, in speaking of an event, that it 
 happened' the day before or the day after the day 
 when we ate that good hare. Oh ! Monsieur BeUe- 
 Plante, if you had sent me a hare, I should have 
 held you in eternal gratitude." 
 
BELLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 69 
 
 "Here, Frangois! here, Cornelius! come here, 
 you scamps ! What did you do with my hare that 
 I ordered you to take to Mousieur Guillerand?" 
 
 "It was stolen from me," said Frangois. 
 
 " What, unfortunate !" exclaimed M. Guillerand, 
 "my hare was stolen from you! Have a care how 
 you answer: I have a little finger which knows 
 everything." 
 
 "Well, yes, it was stolen from me, "replied Fran- 
 gois, with imperturbable coolness ; "ask Cornelius; 
 he is a more reliable witness than your little 
 finger." 
 
 But Cornelius did not say a word, for he had paid 
 that he might not J)e obliged to lie. 
 
 "And how was it stolen from you, you scamp?" 
 exclaimed M. Guillerand. 
 
 "Why, as one steals a hare — by laying hands on 
 it." 
 
 "But the particulars." 
 
 "Well," said Frangois, who by this time had con- 
 cocted his romance, " I had stopped in a ditch, and 
 had placed my hare by the roadside. A man, who 
 passed laid hands upon it and ran away with it." 
 
 "Great imbecile! to allow a hare intended for me 
 to be stolen! Why, you ought to have cried; 'Stop 
 thief!'" 
 
70 BELLE-PLANTB AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 "And so we did, both of us, Cornelius and I, and I 
 am still hoarse in consequence ; but the thief fled 
 as if it had been the hare that was running away 
 with him." 
 
 " It would serve you right, Monsieur Fran§ois, if 
 I were to make you {que je vous fasse) pay for the 
 hare." 
 
 ^^ Que je vous fisse," said Cornelms. "This time 
 it is the priest himself who blasphemes." 
 
 " True, most true, Monsieur Cornelius. You see, 
 Monsieur Belle-Plant, that is what we Latinists call 
 a lapsus lingucB — that is, a slip of the tongue. How 
 strong this little Cornelius is on syntax! In his 
 presence one must be careful ! 
 
 "'Maxima debetur puero reverentia. ' 
 
 "If you see fit, Monsieur Belle-Plante, to send me 
 a pair of chickens to compensate me for the hare 
 that has been stolen, I beg you to entrust Monsieur 
 Cornelius with the errand. Now, if it were a 
 clock, I would not say as much." 
 
 The farmer listened to this discussion with a very 
 paternal air and in silent attention. From time to 
 time, to enlighten his conscience, he poured himself 
 a bumper, religiously administering one like it to 
 M. Guillerand, 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 71 
 
 "The case has been suflficiently heard," he cried, 
 rising. "I condemn Frangois." 
 
 "Permit me, Monsieur Belle-Plante," exclaimed 
 M. Guillerand. "I condemn, I condemn! that is 
 soon said. But you, who condemn Frangois for 
 having allowed a hare to be stolen from him, did 
 you never in your life allow anything to be stolen 
 from you? That is like all parents; they chastise 
 in their children the wrongs of which they them- 
 selves are guilty. The father whips his son because 
 he smokes, and he himself takes snuff ; the mother 
 scolds her daughter because she has broken a por- 
 celain cup, and she herself, the day before, broke a 
 tea-set. Men are so constituted ; they desire liberty 
 for themselves and the most absolute dependence 
 for their subordinates. The Eomans talked of noth- 
 ing but liberty, and they threw their slaves to the 
 fish. Nowhere is the right of ttie strongest exer- 
 cised as despotically as under the paternal roof ; the 
 most legitimate tastes, instincts, passions, in chil- 
 dren, are always sacrificed to the caprice of parents. 
 They expect their young ones at the age of eight to 
 behave like grown persons. These remarks are not 
 meant for you, of course, Monsieur Belle-Plante; 
 but then, whom has Frangois wronged? You? No, 
 since you have consented to deprive yourself of your 
 
73 BBLLE-PLANTB AND COENBLIUS. 
 
 hare for my sake. Me? Still less; I should be far 
 advanced to-day for having eaten a hare-stew a fort- 
 night ago. Come, Frangois is not at all disposed 
 to allow himself to be cheated ; that I know very 
 well. If he has been robbed, you may be sure that 
 it was not his fault. Now, if it were Monsieur Cor- 
 nelius, it might be different." 
 
 " All that is very fine, " said the farmer ; " but one 
 cannot be in the right when he has allowed a hare 
 to be stolen from him: those are my principles. 
 Frangois must be chastised." 
 
 "Barbarous man! brute!" cried M. Guillerand. 
 "Must I, a schoolmaster, plead for your son? 
 Permit me to address to you the lines which Abner 
 addresses to Mathan in the tragedy of ' Athalie' : 
 
 "'Eh quoi ! Mathan, d'un pretreest-ce I'a le langage? 
 Moi, nourri dans la guerre airs hon-eurs du carnage, 
 Des vengeances des rois ministre rigoureux 
 C'est moi qui pr^te ici ma voix aux malheureux !' " 
 
 " What does that Latin mean. Monsieur Guille- 
 rand," said the farmer. 
 
 "Latin! you are joking, Monsieur Belle-Plante. 
 What ! you are in your own house, and do not know 
 yourself? But do not be embarrassed, it is not your 
 fault ; there are, in fact, two languages in France — 
 one for we men of letters, the other for the mob of 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 73 
 
 natives. But the truth is that those are French 
 verses, and magnificent ones too. I would give my 
 vineyard in Chaumes to have written one hemistich 
 of them. What do you think of them, Monsieur 
 Cornelius?" 
 
 "For my part," said Cornelius, "I would rather 
 have invented the wheelbarrow." 
 
 "The wheelbarrow! Are you mad, Monsieur 
 Cornelius? A fine bauble is the wheelbarrow to 
 be compared to the verses of Eacine !" 
 
 "Yes, the wheelbarrow. Monsieur Guillerand, 
 the wheelbarrow !" 
 
 " How original this little Cornelius is ! If he saw 
 a crowd going over a bridge, he would swim across 
 the river to be different from the rest. But what 
 do you find to criticise in these verses?" 
 
 "There are too many words for one idea, Mon- 
 sieur Guillerand, and these words are too magnifi- 
 cent for so common an idea. They remind one of 
 the Mancanares, which has thirty arches and be- 
 strides only a brook." 
 
 " The Mancanares, a little river at Madrid ; you 
 see. Monsieur Belle-Plante, how strong Cornelius is 
 in geography." 
 
 "When one has a letter of two lines to write," 
 said Cornelius, " he does not put it on a sheet of 
 
74 BELLE-PLANTE AKD COENELIUS. 
 
 royal paper. Would you, Monsieur Guillerand, 
 take thirty yards of black tress to make a ribbon for 
 your cue?" 
 
 " That, Monsieur Belle-Plante, is what we dialec- 
 ticians call an argument ad hominem. Go ask De- 
 pouilly if he has scholars in his school who can make 
 arguments ad hominem. Go on, Monsieur Corne- 
 lius, although the opinion which you utter is con- 
 trary to that of our century, which admires Racine, 
 and even to my own, I am sure that your father 
 has the greatest pleasure in listening to us. " 
 
 " Nourri dans la guerre (nourished in war)," con- 
 tinued Cornelius; "a disagreeable figure, because it 
 is drawn from animal life, and furthermore it is 
 lacking in accuracy. We might say of an athlete, 
 nourished for struggle, for pugilism, because ath- 
 letes are subjected to an especial regime fitted to 
 their profession ; but what do we give a soldier to 
 eat in order to accustom him to the horreurs du 
 carnage (horrors of carnage) ? Moreover, this hemi- 
 stich is weak in that it signifies the same thing as 
 the first. Why did not Abner, instead of trum- 
 peting four verses for us, simply say: 'I who am a 
 soldier?' The antithesis would have been more 
 striking. If you separate by a periphrase or two 
 the objects which you compare, they are too far 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 75 
 
 from one another ; the contrast is not perceived, or 
 at least it becomes much less evident. Everybody 
 knows very well that a soldier is a man who makes 
 war, and that war is carnage. Why, then, all this 
 ridiculousarray of words? To write three times, 'I 
 am a soldier, ' or to say it three times in different 
 ways, is it not the same thing? Eacine here re- 
 sembles an awkward waiter of whom I ask a glass 
 of rum, and who pours it for me into a decanter of 
 water. The periphirase, with our poets, is generally 
 a valet who goes to the cellar by way of the attic. 
 That the periphrase may be of good quality, it must 
 exhibit the object under a new and picturesque 
 image, it must make it stand out amid the words 
 that frame it, it must illuminate it like a flash; 
 otherwise, it is only a vain excrescence upon the dis- 
 course,) a useless string of words which entangle 
 the phrase and hamper its progress. In general, 
 I find that our poets are too sparing of ideas and too 
 prodigal of words. Almost all verses are made of 
 sonorous phrases, whose only merit is harmony. 
 The poets are extremely satisfied with themselves 
 when they have said courser instead of horse, or 
 saltpetre instead of gunpowder; they think that 
 they have done wonders when they have wrapped a 
 trivial and commonplace idea in a pompous period. 
 
76 BELLE-PLAJTTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 But then this poor idea resembles those common per- 
 sons of all sorts whom we meet everywhere in soci- 
 ety, dressed Jike gentlemen. If you have only a 
 pickled herring to offer me, do not present it on a 
 silver plate. Poetry consists in figures, in senti- 
 ment, not in music. I am tempted to beg those poor 
 martyrs of rhyme and the caesura, who run after 
 harmonious words, to play me their pieces on the 
 sweet flute. The style of these people is too bom- 
 bastic; they do not know how to avoid the trivial 
 without falling into the inflated. There are things 
 the simplicity of which should not be spoiled by a 
 misplaced nobility of expression. Would the rose 
 be more beautiful if you were to gild its leaves? 
 And this decaying willow, which droops over the 
 mill, would it be more poetical if you were 'to scrape 
 the moss off it and pull up the long grasses that hang 
 around its old trunk?" 
 
 "The devil!" said M. Guillerand, "I would 
 not like my friend Fleury, the professor of rhetoric, 
 to hear Monsieur Cornelius; he would have a 
 fever ; he would quarrel with me beyond hope of 
 reconciliation. He lately expelled a poor pupil from 
 his class because he had the weakness to yawn at 
 the thirtieth line in the first scene of 'Athalie.' Do 
 you know what there is of truth in what Monsieur 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 77 
 
 Cornelius has just said? I like, myself, this bold 
 logic which attacks accredited things, this some- 
 what revolutionary independence of thought which 
 does not admit the infallibility of the masters. ^The 
 master has said it, ' is the most stupid phrase that 
 ever came from a man's lips. He who knows only 
 what has been taught him is a poor devil. At the 
 mayor's, at the sheriff's, where I often go, I meet 
 a multitude of people who give me a whole treatise 
 on rhetoric if I enter upon a literary discussion with 
 them. They have been told that such a thing is 
 good, and they repeat it. These people come from 
 the University in a straight line ; but this absolute 
 instruction is not mine, Monsieur Belle-Plante. I 
 leave to my pupils complete liberty of thought ; I 
 say to them : 'Look with your eyes, listen with your 
 ears, judge with your minds;' and it is in this way. 
 Monsieur Belle-Plante, that men are made. I am 
 delighted that you have heard Monsieur Cornelius; 
 it will give you an idea of the instruction which 
 my pupils receive. When the Duke of Nivernais, 
 who is a very estimable litterateur, and who always 
 sends me his fables to get my opinion of them, comes 
 to Clamecy, I wish to present Monsieur Cornelius 
 to him." 
 
 But Master Belle-Plante, to charm away the ennui 
 
78 
 
 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 of a discussion which he did not understand, had 
 begun to doze. The two brothers, profiting by his 
 sleep, took flight, Hke two birds escaped from the 
 net of the fowler. As for M. Guillerand, seeing 
 that he had no companion left, he ordered the 
 servant to go to the cellar, and quietly set himself 
 to finish the stew, while waiting for Master Belle- 
 Plante to wake up. An hour later Frangois and 
 
 THE DRUNKEN SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 Cornelius met him on the Clamecy road, carrying a 
 pair of chickens at the end of his cane, and going 
 hither and thither, forward and back, like a vessel 
 beaten by the storm. His chickens, understand- 
 ing the danger which threatened them in the 
 
BELLE-PIANTE AND CORNELIUS. 81 
 
 hands of such a man, filled the air with the most 
 distressing kirikikis. 
 
 "He will fall into the Yonne," said Cornelius to 
 Belle -Plante; "he must be guided as far as the 
 Maladrerie." 
 
 "Why does he get drunk?" said Belle-Plante, 
 as people say, under such circumstances, who, to 
 avoid helping you, are very glad to find you in the 
 wrong, and he returned to the house ; but he was 
 punished for his hardness of heart. When he ar- 
 rived, his father was in a terrible humor because 
 he had lost ah ox ; he remembered the affair of the 
 hare, and chastised the scamp as he deserved. 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 A YEAR afterward, Belle-Plante and Cornelius 
 left school. According to M. Guillerand, as we 
 have already seen, Belle-Plante was a great scholar. 
 It is certainly very painful to us to arraign the 
 authority of this great schoolmaster, who was the 
 friend of my uncle Benjamin; but the truth be- 
 fore anything, before M. Guillerand, and even be- 
 fore my uncle. The fact is that Belle-Plante, in 
 the matter of reading, was a real gentleman; ^s a 
 penman, he stood no higher in the esteem of his fel- 
 low-citizens ; the only French word that he knew 
 how to write correctly was Belle-Plante, and even 
 in that word his B always resembled a retort. Fur- 
 thermore, far from regarding his ignorance as an 
 imperfection, he gloried in it; he pretended that 
 there was a saving of more than a hundred francs 
 a year in not knowing how to read or write. 
 
 When one knows how to read, he said, one reads ; 
 now, to read one must buy books; then, one is 
 obliged, for a thousand reasons, to subscribe to the 
 agricultural journal edited by lawyers, by a multi- 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELItTS. 83 
 
 tude of people who haven't a piece of land as big as 
 a pocket-handkerchief, and who carry on their ex- 
 periments in flower-pots. That is not all ; it is nec- 
 essary to subscribe to this one's pamphlet, published 
 for the benefit of the poor; to that one's work, in 
 parts, on the history of the neighborhood ; to the poet- 
 ical essays of a third, whose beginnings must be en- 
 couraged. One spends a bag of money, and in ex- 
 change receives a heap of paper sheets fit only to serve 
 as wrappers for cutlets broiled in paper. This has 
 the further disadvantage of leading you to eat cut- 
 lets, which cost twelve sous a pound. In the fourth 
 place, when you know how to read and write, you 
 receive a pile of letters which the writers, for pro- 
 priety's sake, take care not to stamp. Now it is a 
 friend, to whom you have hardly said good-day, who 
 consults you as to the probable rise or fall in oats ; 
 now it is another friend, who, never having what 
 he needs, asks you to lend him a sack of seed ; an- 
 other time it is a charlatan chemist, who offers you 
 a marvellous dressing, perfectly healthy and with- 
 out odor, which is bound to triple the product of 
 your land — he will make it with orange-flowers for 
 the ladies who cultivate their lands themselves 
 should they condescend to honor him with their pat- 
 ronage. One must lose his time and use up his 
 
84 BELLE-PLANTE ASTD COElirELIUS. 
 
 candles in answering all this trash, under penalty 
 of being put down by his neighbors as a savage, as 
 a wolf, or as some other animal destitute of man- 
 ners. Then, when one has read others, he wishes 
 to be read in his turn. He is very glad to demon- 
 strate to the small public of the neighborhood that 
 he has made interesting experiments on grass, that 
 he is a skilful irrigator, an unparalleled fattener 
 of cattle, and a man of wit in the bargain. One 
 orders of the printer a pretty little glory in pica, at 
 so much a page, and for his money gets laughed at 
 by a multitude of people who have nothing to do 
 but to make sport of others. iFor my part, if this 
 mania ever seizes me, I will apply at once to the 
 preconizer, and thus get out of it as cheaply as pos- 
 sible, In the matter of knowledge, we do not need 
 the superfluous ; that which is not necessary is al- 
 ways . a burden. The grocer's wife, for instance, 
 knows music; she buys a piano, she goes to the 
 opera, she deafens her husband from morning till 
 night, and meantime her kettle boils over or her 
 roast burns. 
 
 But, though Belle-Plante was illiterate, he pos- 
 sessed by way of compensation a fine assortment 
 of bucolic acquirements ; he handled the goad in a 
 thoroughly artistic fashion ; he was very competent 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 85 
 
 to make a litter for the oxen and to care for them 
 when sick. He knew his horse, moreover, from 
 hoof to horns; a jockey could not have deceived 
 him, and in fact he was smart enough to deceive 
 the jockeys themselves — two qualities alike precious 
 for a man engaged in commerce. 
 
 He knew as well as the Liege almanac when it 
 was time to plough the ground a second time or to 
 hoe, in what month barley should be cut, and in 
 what season wheat should be sown. Moreover, the 
 economy of the kitchen had no secrets for him ; he 
 would have made a brilliant competition for the 
 position of manager of a hospital or warden of a 
 prison ; in a week he would have made a monk grow 
 thin ; he would have told you almost to an ounce 
 how much butter is required to season a bushel of 
 potatoes. 
 
 At first he aided his father in the management of 
 his farms, and worked wonders of activity and ava- 
 rice. He was twenty-two years old when his father 
 died. The old man had a stroke of apoplexy one 
 morning when getting ready to lead two oxen to 
 the Olamecy fair. There was in Belle-Plante the 
 stuff to make two attorneys, and out of the pieces 
 could have been made a good process-server. He 
 did not amuse himself in uttering loud cries; there 
 
86 BBLLB-PLANTE AKD COBNBLIUS. 
 
 would be time enough later to weep for his father. 
 He seized all the promissory notes in his father's 
 pdrtfolio, and then, to fulfil his last intention, led 
 to Clamecy the two oxen destined for the market, 
 and with them all those which were in the stable. 
 He made haste to get the notes discounted and to 
 sell the oxen ; then, like a good son, he quickly re- 
 turned to Armes to put the author of his days in his 
 cof&n. The next day, the judicial authorities came 
 to affix the seals, as was their duty ; but never was 
 an operation more useless. Consequently from that 
 time Belle-Plante entertained a sovereign contempt 
 for the seals ; he said that they were a lock on an 
 empty strong-box. He cleverly profited by the in- 
 terest inspired by his orphaned condition to secure a 
 renewal of the five or six leases which his father 
 possessed and at lower figures ; then the poor orphan 
 began to exploit the paternal inheritance. As we 
 have seen, to simplify things a litle, he had taken 
 possession of all the movable valuables upon which 
 he could lay his hands. As for the lands, he divided 
 them into two portions, one including the good and 
 the other the bad, and, profiting hj a blank power 
 of attorney which Cornelius had sent him, he 
 awarded the bad to him. 
 
 One can easily see that with a man of Belle- 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 87 
 
 Plante's character and probity, receipts must exceed 
 expenditures. Now, when he had laid up some 
 money, he bought a piece of land adjoining his own 
 and to his liking ; he was on the track of small pro- 
 prietors in debt who were obliged to sell for cash in 
 order to relieve themselves of embarrassment, and 
 he secured their real estate for a piece of bread, as 
 they say at Clamecy. Thus he secured for himself, 
 furrow by furrow, as they weave a piece of cloth 
 thread by thread, a very fine property. But in his 
 opinion it was not well to own lands which one is 
 not able to manage himself. When, therefore, the 
 extent of his fields was sufficient to absorb his en- 
 tire activity, he constituted himself the village 
 banker, and, as he never lent at more than twenty 
 per cent. , he called himself the resource of the coun- 
 try. Moreover, he did not suspect that this conduct 
 was at all reprehensible, and if you called him an 
 unworthy man of wealth, he would have been as as- 
 tonished as Murat, in our day, at hearing himself 
 called a coward. 
 
 As for Cornelius, pushed on by the demon of sci- 
 ence, after having left M. Guillerand, he had gone 
 to Paris. His love for Louise did not stop him, and 
 Louise herself, full of confidence in his genius, 
 urged him to pursue the course of his high destiny. 
 
88 BBLLE-PLANTB AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 Father Deaallemagnes was very rich. He was 
 not precisely a miser, but he placed a high value on 
 money. Cornelius, with his passion for knowledge, 
 which he took for a disguised love of laziness, did 
 not seem to him a very desirable match. Neverthe- 
 less, he promised his daughter that, as soon as Cor- 
 nelius, by some important discovery, had won a 
 place among the savants of the country, he would 
 accept him as his son-in-law. This promise had 
 doubled Cornelius' ardor; he made haste to learn 
 geometry and algebra, and he applied them to me- 
 chanics before giving them a chance to cool off. In 
 the first place, he was struck by the high rate of 
 cab fares ; he thought that he could render a great 
 service to his country by placing locomotion by 
 vehicle within the reach of all purses. 
 
 To replace the thousands of horses, whose proud 
 gallop spatters mud upon pedestrians, he had de- 
 vised a little car, which was to work without the 
 aid of any quadruped. I have in my archives a 
 plan of this ingenious locomotive, and I can give 
 the mechanism of it to our readers. To the axle 
 was fixed a sort of circular staircase in the form 
 of a drum. Cornelius maintained that a man, by 
 bringing his whole weight to bear upon the steps of 
 this drum, could impart to the wheels a suflScient 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 89 
 
 impulse to carry a passenger and his baggage, pro- 
 vided this baggage was only a small bundle. Our 
 learned friend had no doubt of his success. If, 
 after paying the workmen's bills, he had had money 
 enough left to pay for his wedding-coat, he would 
 have bought it. He had but one fear — that the 
 cab-drivers, being quarrelsome and turbulent people, 
 might rise in riot against his discovery and- tear 
 him and his little cart to pieces. Unhappily this 
 fear had not the smallest foundation; Cornelius 
 himself was obliged to admit, after tryihg his car- 
 riage, that the coachman would advance much far- 
 ther and expend much less sweat in carrying his 
 passenger on his shoulders than in thus drawing him. 
 This failure did not discourage him. He broiled 
 cutlets with the remains of his little car, and began 
 to search for something else. He remembered that 
 the metal rods to which the disk of a pendulum is 
 attached elongate under the influence of heat and 
 contract in a cold temperature. The inequality of 
 the oscillations produced by these variations in 
 length seemed to him intolerable. French clock- 
 makers had no heart to have allowed this abuse to 
 endure so long ; it was necessary thai] he, Cornelius 
 Belle -Plante, should come into the world in order 
 that the universe might know the exact time. He 
 
90 BBLLE-PLAlfrTB AND COENELIUS. 
 
 succeeded in making a clock which performed its 
 functions without a pendulum. It was a magnifi- 
 cent, pleasing, elegant clock, bound to have a superb 
 effect on a parlor mantel. Unhappily the shining 
 qualities of this clock were offset by a little fault ; 
 never could Cornelius make it go more than three 
 minutes. What consoled him was that he had at 
 least remedied for three minutes the defect which 
 he desired to abolish ; that was something at any 
 rate. Cornelius banished the unfortunate clock to 
 the attic, lest the sight of it might discourage him, 
 and plunged again into his meditations. He re- 
 flected upon the embarrassment in which French 
 ladies would find themselves if a war with England 
 should arise, and colonial sugars captured on the 
 way should no longer reach our ports. What ! those 
 gross and fleshy mistresses, those puffy-cheeked 
 young misses, those long ladies of over-sea, as dry 
 and stiff as a broomstick, should have all the sugar 
 they wanted, and our lovely French women should 
 be reduced to the insipid sweetness of licorice paste? 
 This thought gave Cornelius the greater indigna- 
 tion because Louise drank coffee every morning for 
 breakfast. So he established himself at Belleville, 
 and began to make sugar out of spinach. This 
 time he succeeded perfectly ; his sugar, which he 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 91 
 
 called Belle-Plante sugar in honor of his father, 
 had the lustre and sweetness of cane sugar. He 
 sent a sample to Louise, who found it excellent, and 
 who expected . every moment to see Cornelius, his 
 head surrounded with the grand halo of a savant, 
 enter her house and ask her hand in marriage. Un- 
 fortunately there was a little difficulty in the way 
 of the execution of Cornelius' idea — namely, that 
 it took the product of three beds of spinach to 
 sweeten one cup of coffee. 
 
 You think perhaps that these unlucky attempts 
 discouraged Cornelius. Do not be deceived ; he had 
 one of those rectilinear wills which never deviate. 
 If I were charged with the task of striking a medal 
 in honor of our savant, I would represent him to 
 you under the emblem of a steamboat going up a 
 river, throwing around it in the form of spray the 
 waves which try to arrest its course, and waving 
 proudly 4n the air its plume of smoke. 
 
 Cornelius had given himself his word of honor 
 that he would make a great discovery, and nothing 
 less than the destruction of all the wood and iron 
 in France could have caused him to fail in his en- 
 gagement. For this, moreover, he had two excel- 
 lent reasons: the first was that he could marry 
 Louise only on this condition ; the second, that glory 
 
92 BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 is not trash, Frangois Belle-Plan te to the contrary 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 It must be a very fine thing, this applause that 
 one hears in posterity, this to-morrow resplendent 
 with sunlight that one sees shining after the dark 
 and rainy day of life ! How sweet it must he to 
 enjoy the possession of one of those names which 
 generations transmit through a long series of cen- 
 turies, as the departing sentinel transmits the coun- 
 tersign to the sentinel who comes ; to be conscious 
 that the time which passes, and which in passing 
 mows down old towers, throws castles to the ground, 
 and turns cities into fields of grass, does not touch 
 your name, cannot cut off an accent, is unable even 
 to wipe a dot off an i ! The insects, from their blade 
 of grass, undoubtedly pity the caterpillar which 
 painfully traces its way through the dust ; but if 
 they knew that it must become a butterfly, would 
 they not envy it? Do not believe those who tell you 
 that glory is but smoke ; they say it only to console 
 themselves for their obscurity. All men have a hor- 
 ror of annihilation ; they do not wish to be extin- 
 guished like a candle in a puff of wind ; those who 
 cannot be admired wish at least to be mourned; 
 from the child who writes his name upon a wall to 
 the old man who orders a statue placed over his 
 
BBLLB-PLANTB AND COBSTELIUS. 93 
 
 grave, all love glory and wish their share of 
 fame. 
 
 For my part, if the devil, to tempt me, were to 
 say to me : " Fall upon your knees and worship me ; 
 you shall have cellars full of gold, coffers full of 
 diamonds, bank-notes enough to break a mule's 
 back ; you shall have castles everywhere, woods on 
 all the mountains, vineyards on all the hills, fields 
 in all the plains ; you shall have horses of all colors, 
 all qualities, all breeds ; you shall have women of 
 every sort — dark, liglit, I'ed, white, pink, black, 
 and copper- color ; you shall have those who dance 
 like fairies; you shall have those who sing like a 
 lyre ; you shall have those who talk like an orator ; 
 you shall have those who write plays, elegies, me- 
 moirs, prefaces; and you shall have those who em- 
 broider slippers; you shall have those with long 
 braided hair, who wrap themselves in a veil, like 
 meat that one wishes to keep from the flies, and 
 who promenade majestically in velvet and in silk ; 
 and you shall have those who beam in the sunlight 
 and who frisk about gayly and gracefully in stuff 
 and woolen muslin" — if the devil were to say this 
 to me, I would do as Jesus did on a similar occa- 
 sion ; I would send him . . . further. If, on the 
 other hand. Monsieur Dupin, who is not the devil, 
 
94 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 were to say to me on election day: "Give me your 
 vote, and you shall have mayors' scarfs, policemen's 
 belts, judges' robes, magistrates' caps, cabinet-min- 
 isters' berets, sub-prefects' embroidered collars, 
 bridges, departmental roads, church rood-lofts, 
 more crosses of honor than you want, statues of 
 saints, bells, well-bound books, and even a copy of 
 my works," I would answer him as I would answer 
 the devil: "King of Clamecy, no, I thank you." 
 But if he were to say to me, he who so ingeniously 
 discovered Jean Eouvet, the inventor of rafting: 
 " Give me your vote, and I will tell the cabinet- 
 minister that you invented the Yonne ; then I will 
 have a bust of you cast in bronze by subscription, 
 to be placed opposite that of Jean Eouvet," I would 
 answer him: "Your majesty, there is my vote, 
 and if I had thirty, they should be at your service ; 
 only I beg you not to make me resemble Napoleon, 
 and not to place your name in gilt letters on the 
 side." 
 
 But to come back to Cornelius. There was talk 
 at that time of a war with neighboring powers. 
 These bellicose rumors stimulated the genius of our 
 learned friend. He began to meditate on the means 
 of assuring victory to France, and he made his ex- 
 terminating car. Now, this exterminating car was 
 
BBLLE-PLAKTE AND COEKELIUS. 95 
 
 armed with pikes, swords, espadons and demi-es- 
 padons, Catalan knives, and English razors. Oh ! it 
 was a terrible machine ; it makes me shudder even 
 to describe it. With the exterminating car of Cor- 
 nelius an entire regiment could be cut to pieces in 
 five minutes. This car was presented to the public 
 minister, who found it to his liking and compli- 
 mented the inventor. Cornelius was already at the 
 height of his hopes ; but a mischievous joker in the 
 artillery corps took it upon himself to say that but 
 one thing had been forgotten — to write on the front 
 of this hash-machine : " By order of the King, it is 
 forbidden to the enemy to fire a shot at this car." 
 This witticism altered the minister's mind, and the 
 exterminating car was hissed. Cornelius, as one 
 might surmise, was not a little indignant at this 
 joke ; but as he had good sense, he finally recog- 
 nized its justice, and besides, the war-clouds, which 
 had for some time obscured our political horizon, 
 had disappeared. So he disarmed his car, sold the 
 blades to the cutler by the pound, and used the car- 
 cass for firewood. Thus perished of a miserable, 
 death, crushed by a malicious jest, this formidable 
 machine which was to have given France the em- 
 pire of the world. 
 
 So far Cornelius had had a magnificent existence. 
 
96 BELLE-PLANTE AKD COElfELITTS. 
 
 an accidental existence in which the poverty of to- 
 morrow contrasted with the poverty of yesterday, 
 and which I cannot better compare than to those 
 days of March so full of brilliant sunshine and 
 gloomy showers. Like a great king, he showed 
 himself a protector of the sciences and the arts. 
 He lived in the Rue Saint- Jacques, in an old dingy 
 hotel, which was the rendezvous of poets in search 
 of a publisher, physicians on the track of a great 
 discover}', mathematicians in pursuit of a professor 
 ship. The owner of this respectable establishment 
 might very well have adopted as a sign : A savant 
 in rags. The four sides of this edifice enclosed a 
 little yard about the size of a soap-box, which, from 
 the top floor, somewhat resembled a chimney-flue. 
 Cornelius had two rooms at the top of this old struc- 
 ture ; his windows opened on a roof whose gutters 
 served him as a terrace, and sometimes, armed with 
 his air-gun, he gave himself the pleasure of hunt- 
 ing, to the prejudice of the cats who came there to 
 sleep in the sunshine and of the birds who came there 
 to lay in a supply of insects. Always at his bread 
 and salt he had two or three of the learned person- 
 ages of whom we have spoken above. When he 
 had sold a piece of land to Belle-Plante, which hap- 
 pened regularly whenever he made a discovery, he 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COKlfELIUS. 97 
 
 took them to dine magnificently at a neighboring 
 restaurant, and then was prodigal of ample beef- 
 steaks and tall bottles of Bordeaux. 
 
 Such a dinner as that, seasoned with a well-sus- 
 tained discussion, was to Cornelius the joy of joys. 
 But this golden dew soon evaporated ; for Cornelius 
 kept nothing for himself. He was like the tree that 
 abandons its fruits to whoever will take them. Then 
 he returned to lay the cloth at his own domicile. 
 The provision-dealers in the neighborhood gave him 
 credit to a certain extent, and, as he paid with 
 promptness and without dispute as soon as he came 
 into possession of funds, never did this resource fail 
 him. Then he dispatched his friends to his pur- 
 veyors ; the poet brought from the green-grocer's a 
 Savoy cabbage, the physician obtained from the 
 butcher a breast of mutton, the mathematician 
 came back from the baker's with a long roll, which 
 he sometimes, in a fit of absent-mindedness, used 
 as a cane ; the grocer supplied sugar and brandy to 
 make a punch. Our friend, who was very skilful 
 and happy in the application of chemistry to the 
 culinary art, began to prepare the dinner; then, 
 when his stew was well started, he set the physi- 
 cian on guard by the side of the kettle, who watched 
 it as if it were a retort ; he sent the poet to take a 
 
98 BELLB-PLAKTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 walk in the Jardin des Plantes, and the mathemati- 
 cian, to bury himself until the dinner hour in the 
 darkest depths of geometry. But when the credit 
 which he enjoyed had attained its maximum, he 
 dismissed his friends until further orders ; he wrote 
 to Belle-Plante offering to sell him a new piece of 
 land, and, pending the arrival of his funds, he em- 
 braced the economic method of life peculiar to the 
 dormouse ; he spent eighteen hours in bed, dream- 
 ing as well as sleeping, and rose in the afternoon 
 only to dine off a two-pound loaf; for God, who 
 creates compensations for all miseries as for all joys, 
 who causes the birth of flowers amid the thorns as 
 he puts thorns amid the flowers, sent him an appe- 
 tite that increased in proportion as his table was 
 more poverty-stricken and bare. 
 
 Cornelius had preserved a profound contempt for 
 the charlatanism of dress ; he never had more than 
 one black coat, and that was on his shoulders ; when 
 he found that he was out at elbows, he ordered an- 
 other, and it had to be ready the next day. If this 
 catastrophe happened to him during a time when he 
 was short of money, he abstained from going out ; 
 for his black coat was his emblem, and, out of re- 
 spect for science, he did not wish a savant to be 
 pointed at in the street. As for his boots, when 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND COEKELIUS. 99 
 
 there were holes in them, but never before, he threw 
 them into a corner of the attic of which he was in 
 possession, and certainly, in this sort of cemetery, 
 there was a magnificent assortment for a cobbler. 
 But just as in great crises they summon again into 
 activity functionaries previously condemned for rea- 
 
 HE CHOSE FROM HIS DISCARDED SHOES THOSE WHICH HAD THE 
 SMALLEST HOLES. 
 
 sons of reform, he was forced, in the time of his 
 pressing need, to have recourse to this heap of de- 
 crepitudes; he chose from his discarded shoes those 
 which had the smallest holes, and obliged them to 
 brave once more the mud of the street and the sharp 
 corners of the pavement. 
 
100 BELIiE-PLANTB AND COKKELIUS. 
 
 For the rest, Cornelius passed with much ease 
 from the superabundant joys of wealth to the pri- 
 vations of poverty ; if he welcomed wealth like a 
 friend whose hands we press on his arrival, he tol- 
 erated poverty like a disagreeable visitor to whom 
 one dares not say that he is a bore ; he compared life 
 to the entire year, which has four seasons through 
 which it is necessary to pass, or to an equation which 
 has two terms, in one of which appears the sign mi- 
 nus, and the other of which contains the sign plus. 
 His exterminating car had almost completed his ruin. 
 He had nothing left but a rather sorry farm, which 
 his first invention would devour; but that made no 
 difference to him. The only thing that disturbed 
 him was that he ardently desired to see Louise 
 again, and that he did not wish to return to Armes 
 without having begun his fortune and his glory. 
 So he went to work again at fresh expense, and soon 
 he was on the track of a magnificent discovery ; 
 but it was necessary to spend much money to arrive 
 at a result. So he wrote to Louise to sell his farm 
 to Belle-Plante, who always paid cash, and to send 
 him the proceeds directly ; but he did not tell her to 
 what use he intended to put them, for he was not 
 sure of her discretion, and he was terribly afraid 
 that his idea might be stolen. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A FEW mornings afterward a messenger presented 
 himself to the porter of the savant's residence with 
 a bag of money and a ham, the whole addressed to 
 Cornelius. The poet Versidor, tormented by in- 
 somnia like Ahasuerus of old, happened to be in the 
 porter's lodge. In spite of the unseasonable hour, 
 he ascended the five stories that separated him from 
 his friend Cornelius to tell him the good news. 
 
 It was eight o'clock on a December day; the sun 
 had risen in ill-humor, its brow veiled with crape; 
 a thick fog had settled over Paris, and was weeping 
 silently upon the roofs. It was hardly light in Cor- 
 nelius' room, although, among the inhabitants of 
 the valley of the Seine, he was one of the nearest to 
 the sky, and had not the smallest curtain to his 
 windows, beyond perhaps a few spider-webs. The 
 noise that the poet made in entering caused Corne- 
 lius to waken with a start. 
 
 "You make as much disturbance," said he to 
 Versidor, " as a flight of alexandrines. What brings 
 you here so early?" 
 
 101 
 
102 BELLB-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 It occurred to Versidor, who was facetious by na- 
 ture and by profession (he wrote comic operas), to 
 play upon friend Cornelius what we Frenchmen in 
 the year of grace 1843 would call a good farce. 
 
 "What, so early! You are joking, my generous 
 Maecenas. Did you take opium yesterday?" 
 
 "Why do you ask?" said Cornelius. 
 
 " Because what you take for the coming day is 
 nothing but the falling night. " 
 
 " The falling night !" cried Cornehus in dismay; 
 "and I am invited to dine at four o'clock at the 
 Abbe NoUet's with a company of savants." 
 
 " Then, if j'^ou do not wish to arrive in the midst 
 of the dessert, you will have to practise superhuman 
 diligence." 
 
 "If I get there at the dessert," said Cornelius, 
 "that will be time enough; the discussion seldom 
 commences to get serious earlier than that." 
 
 " The devil ! for a man who has kept himself on 
 an allowance for a week, you have a very disinter- 
 ested stomach. However, with a good dessert and 
 a discussion, provided it be a literary discussion, one 
 can live till breakfast ; but make haste, for it is half 
 past four." 
 
 Cornelius threw himself out of bed and began to 
 dress; but when he started to put on his coat he 
 
BELLE-PIAKTE AND COENELIUS. 103 
 
 noticed with sorrow that there was a hole in the 
 elbow. 
 
 " Versidor," said he to the poet, "lend me your 
 coat." 
 
 "My coat!" answered Versidor; "why! that is 
 satire on your part, cutting irony! It is at least 
 two months since I made a spencer of it." 
 
 "Poor Versidor!" 
 
 "Why poor Versidor? Of what use are coat-tails 
 when one has nothing to put in the pockets?" 
 
 "That logic will do for a poet," said Cornelius; 
 "but, then, go get me our physician's coat." 
 
 " It is a long time, Cornelius, since the physician's 
 coat found a harbor from the storms of life ; it is 
 in the pawn-shop. We breakfasted off it at the 
 Vendanges de Bourgogne one sunny day." 
 
 "And was I at the breakfast?" 
 
 "To be sure you were, and you were even the 
 principal cause of. It was a breakfast that we 
 organized to take your mind off the death of your 
 exterminating car. You remember, the car 
 that " 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know," said Cornelius. "Then I 
 will take Oesaries' coat out of pawn when I receive 
 my funds from Clamecy. But the mathematician's 
 coat?" 
 
104 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNEIIUS. 
 
 "The mathematician's coat, less fortunate than 
 that of Oesaries, has fallen into a state of deplora- 
 ble degradation ; it now performs the functions of a 
 rag. Pantagoras uses it to clean his blackboard; 
 but he has a dressing-gown ; if you could get along 
 with that " 
 
 "Yes, go get his dressing-gown; I will tell the 
 Abbe NoUet that it is a frock coat." 
 
 " That's right, and, if he doubts it, you will prove 
 it to him." 
 
 Versidor went to get Pantagoras' dressing-gown, 
 and Cornelius put it on. As he was going out, Ver- 
 sidor said to him : 
 
 "But do you intend to go to dine at the Abbe 
 NoUet's in slippers?" 
 
 "Why not? Cannot one discuss as well in slip- 
 pers as in boots?" 
 
 " I do not know. However, you would make the 
 Abbe NoUet believe that they are boots. But have 
 you no boots, then?" 
 
 "I have, and I have not; that is to say, I have 
 many that are good for nothing, but not a pair that 
 are good." 
 
 "That's too bad; in the matter of boots, quan- 
 tity does not make up for quality; but come, let 
 us look in your archives ; we certainly shall find a 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COKKELIUS. 105 
 
 pair of boots there which may go to dine in the 
 city." 
 
 Cornelius went up to the attic with the poet. He 
 hit upon a pair of boots which seemed suitable, al- 
 though, like the others, they had holes in them ; in 
 them he buried his shins, without distrust, without 
 reservation, like a man entering his own premises. 
 A little cry was heard. 
 
 "What!" said Versidor, "is there a voice in your 
 boots?" 
 
 "That is not a voice; it is a poor mouse, which I 
 fear I have stifled." 
 
 The good Cornelius plunged his hand into the 
 boot which had cried out, and pulled out a big rat, 
 probably attracted to this spot by an old sock that 
 had been forgotten. Versidor, at sight of it, burst 
 out laughing. 
 
 "You laugh at that, you comic-opera poet; then 
 you have no feeling ; never will you know how to 
 treat passion." 
 
 "Then you believe in metempsychosis?" 
 
 "Does one need to believe in metempsychosis to 
 have pity for a suffering creature?" 
 
 "For a rat?" 
 
 " Yes, for a rat. Do you keep your pity then for 
 a limping alexandrine?" 
 
106 BBLLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 "As I have little to expend, I keep it for my fel- 
 lows." 
 
 "Your fellows? What does that signify? So, 
 if you were lame, you would feel more pity for a 
 lame man who should break his leg than for an- 
 other?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly, because the lame man would need 
 his leg more than another." 
 
 "You dodge the question. But, if you were a 
 hunchback, and a hunchback should break his leg?" 
 
 "Still I should have more pity for him than I 
 should have for a dog." 
 
 "And you would sooner give a piece of bread to 
 a hungry man than to a dog who had had no break- 
 fast?" 
 
 "Without doubt." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 "I don't know. Go ask the physician who dis- 
 sects dogs every day." 
 
 "Well, I will tell you why; you give your bread 
 to the man because some day he may return it to 
 you, whereas you are very sure that the dog will 
 not return it. So, you see, our most generous sen- 
 timents are nothing more than egotism." 
 
 Cornelius put on his boots and went down stairs 
 with Versidor. He was about to take his hat; but 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 107 
 
 the night before, preoccupied with his great discov- 
 ery, supposing he was laying his hat on the com- 
 mode, he had put it in the very middle of the 
 wash-bowl. 
 
 "The devil!" said Cornelius; "this is annoying." 
 
 "Your felt hat must have been terribly thirsty; 
 there isn't a drop of water left in the bowl." 
 
 " Versidor, you, who in your comic operas are so 
 fertile in expedients, must find me another hat." 
 
 "In the residence of the savants it is not easy to 
 find one that is suitable ; but there is a theologian 
 down stairs whom I know; he is undoubtedly at 
 work at his commentaries on Saint Augustine. I 
 will go after his three-cornered hat. " 
 
 "But will he lend it to you?" 
 
 "Of course. With him is not Christian charity a 
 duty? This austere headpiece will go very well 
 with your costume." 
 
 " And what difference does it make what a man 
 wears on his head?" 
 
 "You are right; one can discuss as well in a hat 
 that is three-cornered as in a hat that is round. Do 
 you wish me to bring you the reverend's skull-cap 
 lest you may take cold?" 
 
 Versidor went for the three-cornered hat, which 
 fortunately was at liberty, and Cornelius started for 
 
108 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORHTELIUS. 
 
 the Abbe NoUet's. He crossed the streets, looking 
 neither to the right nor to the left, ransacking his 
 mind for problems to lay before his learned com- 
 panions, and for arguments with which to solve 
 them. When he rang at the door of the illustrious 
 Abbe, the porter had not yet risen. 
 
 "The Abbe NoUet!" said Cornelius, as soon as the 
 door was half open. 
 
 "In bed," answered the porter, whose eyes were 
 still half closed. 
 
 "Is he sick, perchance?" 
 
 "No, he is in very good health." 
 
 " Then how does it happen that he has gone to bed 
 so early? Could he have been making sport of me 
 when he invited me to dinner?" 
 
 "To breakfast, you mean." 
 
 "To dinner, porter, to dinner! I guess I know 
 what I am talking about." 
 
 " Then you are mad," answered the porter, closing 
 the door in his face ; " I might have suspected it 
 from your costume." 
 
 Just then all the clocks struck eight, and Corne- 
 lius recognized that the comical poet had made him 
 play the role of a noble father. He returned to the 
 residence of the savants with long strides, and this 
 time by the shortest road and without deviation, 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORKELIUS. 109 
 
 firmly resolved to cure Versidor of his propensity to 
 play practical jokes. The latter was awaiting him 
 in the porter's lodge. 
 
 "Well, I told you, Cornelius," he cried laughing 
 with all his might, " that you would get there too 
 late." 
 
 "Yes, but I come back soon enough to chastise 
 you, my wicked joker, and " 
 
 " Here, " said Versidor, handing him his bag, " first 
 count this money ; if we go upon the field of honor, 
 and the affair should be settled in advance, at least 
 we shall have something to breakfast upon." 
 
 The sight of this bag, which was larger than he 
 expected, dissipated Cornelius' ill-humor. He 
 went up to his room with Versidor, and emptied his 
 bag upon a table. There was a letter at the bottom 
 of it. He seized it, and, having unfolded it, felt a 
 thrill of joy at seeing that it was filled from the top 
 of the first page to the bottom of the last with 
 Louise's close, fine handwriting. 
 
 " You count the money, " said he to Versidor, " and 
 then go and pay those whom we owe ; and you will 
 tell our savants not to breakfast — a very useless 
 recommendation for half of, them — because we shall 
 breakfast together." 
 
 Having given his orders, he fled rather than went 
 
110 BELLB-PLANTE AKD COKNELIUS. 
 
 away. He entered a restaurant, called for a bottle 
 of Bordeaux and a private room, and, when he had 
 been served, he locked the door. It was always 
 thus that he read Louise's letters. This letter was 
 as follows: 
 
 "My dear Cornelkts : — I send you the money 
 for your farm, with the biggest ham that I have 
 been able to steal from my father." 
 
 "Good Louise!" said Cornelius, taking a swallow 
 of Bordeaux, "she thinks of everything; it is a pity 
 that her ham didn't get here a week sooner." 
 
 " You had strongly advised me, oh ! strongly ad- 
 vised, I admit, to sell your farm to Belle-Plante 
 in order, you said, that it might not go out of the 
 family. This reason did not seem to me peremp- 
 tory, and it was not worthy of you, my savant. 
 What matters it to your father, in the paradise of 
 farmers where he now is, whether his Vaux-Rouges 
 land belongs to Peter or to Paul, and whether grass 
 or potatoes are grown upon it? Do you think, 
 moreover, that he keeps a very affectionate memory 
 of Belle-Plante, who gave him such a small funeral 
 and was unwilling to go to the expense of a black 
 cross for his grave?" 
 
 " Belle-Plante is indeed a wretch, " said Cornelius, 
 taking a second swallow of Bordeaux; "if I were 
 
BELLE- PLANTB ASB COKH'ELITTS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 as rich as he, our father should have a pyramid over 
 his grave." 
 
 " To sell to Belle-Plante is to wish to be duped ; 
 and I, in your interest, and also through my pride 
 as a negotiator, did not wish to be his dupe; he 
 
 CORNELIUS READING LOUISE'S LETTER. 
 
 would give me for your farm only twelve hundred 
 francs, and offered as much as this, he claimed, 
 only because you were his brother." 
 
 "If I had been only his cousin," thought Corne- 
 lius, " undoubtedly I should have had to return him 
 the money." 
 
112 BELLE-PLANTE AND COBNELIUS. 
 
 " But Father Tardieu offered me three thousand 
 five hundred ; by this bargain you gained two thou- 
 sand three hundred francs; this reason seemed to 
 me much better than yours, and I mocked at your 
 will as if I were already your wife. In vain will 
 you argue upon this subject; you will not cause me 
 to repent. Oh, my poor savant, with your pointed 
 beard and your name that ends in us, you do not 
 frighten me. You have too much philosophy to 
 have a little reason, and I must have some for you. 
 I warn you of one thing — that, when we are mar- 
 ried, I shall guide our bark. You shall lie in the 
 bow, you shall look at the sky, you shall listen to 
 the singing of the birds, you shall surprise young 
 girls among the flowery reeds, or you shall fish for 
 little red fish, if that suits you better. " 
 
 "Where does she go for her metaphors?" said 
 Cornelius. "I did not know that there were red 
 fish in the river of life." 
 
 " Belle-Plante is angry with me; he goes about 
 everywhere complaining that I have lost him a good 
 bargain. This man has the conscience of an idiot ; 
 he does not understand the simplest honesty; he 
 offered me a pair of ear-rings if I would let him 
 have the land for twelve hundred francs. He was 
 perfectly amazed, and perhaps has not yet recovered 
 from his amazement, to think that I should refuse 
 so magnificent a bribe. 
 
BELLB-PLANTE AND COKKELIUS. 113 
 
 "By the way, Cornelius, I must tell you some 
 news. Belle-Plante — yes, Belle-Plante — is courting 
 me ! You will say that I am a coquette, who thinks 
 that everybody is smitten with her. In the first 
 place, observe, Cornelius, that I do not say that 
 Belle-Plante is smitten with me. Then, even though 
 he were, what would that prove in favor of my 
 beauty? Belle-Plante does not understand beauty 
 in women; he has sometimes said: 'This is a beau- 
 tiful cow;' 'This is a beautiful mare;' but never 
 has he said: 'This is a beautiful woman. ' Further- 
 more, to him beauty is a redhibitory vice rather 
 than a reason for preference. I am sure that if he 
 could give me the small-pox, he would do so ; I have 
 heard him say that a beautiful woman's dress is a 
 permanent cause of expense to her husband. In 
 this view, it is necessary to put a beautiful portrait 
 in a gilt frame." 
 
 "And who begins with himself," said Cornelius. 
 "As far as that goes, Belle-Plante is not wrong." 
 
 " You will ask me what proof I have that Belle- 
 Plante is courting me. You know that there is 
 nqthing more diflScult to prove than that which is 
 true ; they easily prove that God does not exist, but 
 no one can prove that He exists. Here, however, are 
 my presumptions: Belle-Plante comes to see us 
 of tener than it is necessary ; then, whereas with others 
 he pretends to be poor, to us he talks only of his acres, 
 8 
 
114 BELLB-PLANTE AND COBNELIUS. 
 
 of his oxen, of the notes that he has in his portfolio, 
 and that for entire hours. Now, the other day, 
 during this interesting conversation, I was singing. 
 
 " 'You are very polite to sing, ' said my father, 
 'while Monsieur Belle-Plante is talking.' 
 
 '"Would you prefer, dear father,' I answered, 
 'that I should go to sleep?' 
 
 "'That's always the way with you,' said my 
 father, 'you do not like serious conversation.' 
 
 *"In truth,' I answered, 'all this is very tiresome. 
 Monsieur Frangois ought to bring his strong-box 
 here every evening and jingle it in our ears ; that 
 would amount to the same thing. ' 
 
 " Belle-Plante went away instantly, and I thought 
 that I was rid of him ; but the next day he camfe 
 back again." 
 
 "I will rid you of him, Louise," said Cornelius; 
 "rest easy." 
 
 " A more serious presumption than the others — 
 for you have taught me, my savant, to keep my 
 best arguments for the last — is that Belle-Plante 
 wanted to hold a child with me over the baptismal 
 font. Now, just imagine Belle-Plante throwing his 
 money into the holy- water basin of the church with- 
 out a motive ! It is needless to say that I refused 
 this ridiculous proposition; but my father was 
 present. 
 
 "'Why,' said he, 'are you unwilling to stand as 
 godmother with Monsieur Belle-Plante?' 
 
BELLB-PLAKTB AND CORNELIUS. 115 
 
 " Some time ago he began to call Belle -Plante 
 monsieur. 
 
 "I was not in a humor to be impertinent that 
 day ; so I answered that I had no dress suitable for 
 the ceremony. 
 
 "'Well,' answered my father, 'go and select one 
 at Bonteint's, as handsome a one as you like; I will 
 pay for it. ' 
 
 " 'But, ' I replied, 'I know the value that Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante places upon money, and I would not 
 like to lead him into expense. ' 
 
 " 'What, mademoiselle ! I place a high value upon 
 money?' said Belle-Plante. 'Who told you so? I 
 place no value upon money, except when it is neces- 
 sary ; only I know how to spend it properly ; you 
 will see how the bells will ring for us. If it is nec- 
 essary to spend two six-franc pieces, I will spend 
 them. ' 
 
 "'Two six-franc pieces. Monsieur Belle-Plante! 
 It is easy to see that you have never been a god- 
 father, or else that you were not a magnificent god- 
 father. In the first place, I must have twelve pairs 
 of gloves at thirty sous a pair ; that makes eighteen 
 francs. ' 
 
 " 'Well, ' said Belle-Plante, with a somewhat surly 
 air, 'we will spend eighteen francs; we have the 
 money. ' 
 
 " 'Then it is proper that you should offer me a 
 satin sash costing six francs ; that makes twenty- 
 four already. It is absolutely essential that you 
 
116 BELLE-PIAKTE AND COBKTELIUS. 
 
 should buy me a bouquet of white roses ; but that 
 costs almost nothing; if you apply to Mademoiselle 
 Blanzy, you can get it for fifteen francs. Besides 
 that, there must be a twelve-franc handkerchief for 
 the nurse.' 
 
 " 'Say a three-franc handkerchief, ' said my father. 
 'You are too exacting; in my time one could be a 
 godfather for six francs. ' 
 
 '"Things are done to-day in a nobler style, dear 
 father. You understand that I cannot allow Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante to be stingy, for godfather and 
 godmother are morally bound up with one another. ' 
 
 "'Well,' said my father, 'Monsieur Belle-Plante 
 will spend all that is necessary, as he has very 
 clearly told you ; he has the money to do it ; but I 
 wish you to stand godmother with him.' 
 
 "'My dear Monsieur Desallemagnes, ' said Belle- 
 Plante, 'I see that this disturbs your daughter, and 
 I no longer insist. ' 
 
 "'But I insist,' answered my father. 'I have 
 taken it into my head that she shall stand god- 
 mother with you, and so she shall. ' 
 
 " 'Then I withdraw; it would fill me with despair 
 to cause Mademoiselle Louise the slightest sorrow. ' 
 
 '"Your proposition,' said I, when I saw that 
 Belle-Plante was drawing off, 'far from causing me 
 sorrow, honors me. Only I feared that you would 
 dislike to spend so much money ; but since you have 
 decided to do things properly ' 
 
 '"No, mademoiselle, I see that this would be a 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND COENELITTS. 117 
 
 sacrifice which you would make in my behalf, and 
 I am not enough of an egotist to accept it. I go 
 straightway to tell Bouchard that I cannot stand 
 godfather for his child. ' 
 
 "'Then you will have the fairness not to say to 
 him that I refused to stand godmother with you. ' 
 
 " The next day at breakfast my father returned 
 to the subject of the baptism ; I had done wrong in 
 not accepting Belle-Plante's invitation ; all the girls 
 in the village would have been proud of such an 
 honor ; he was the best match in the neighborhood. 
 I was mischievous enough not to say a word. My 
 father was displeased at my silence. 
 
 "'Well,' he said to me, 'how long, then, does it 
 take to become a great man?' 
 
 " I made no answer. 
 
 "'It seems to me,' he went on, 'that your Corne- 
 lius is in no hurry about achieving fame. Look at 
 the difference between a savant and a good farmer : 
 Cornelius sells his lands, and Belle-Plante buys 
 them. ' 
 
 " My silence was choking me. 
 
 " 'The difference between Belle-Plante and Cor- 
 nelius, ' I answered, 'is that Belle-Plante reaps and 
 that Cornelius is still sowing; another difference 
 between them is that, if Cornelius is poor, it is be- 
 cause he has a great mind and a noble heart, and 
 his hand is open to all the unfortunate ; whereas, if 
 Belle-Plante is rich, it is because he has robbed his 
 brother, and robbed all the poor people who have 
 
118 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 been obliged to appeal to him. And what is the 
 man who would like to be rich in such a fashion? 
 What is the woman who would like to share this 
 shameful wealth and transmit it as an inheritance 
 to her children? But God has made use of the very 
 avarice of Belle-Plante to punish him for his extor- 
 tions; Belle-Plante will be always the basest and 
 most miserable of the peasants of this village. Bah ! 
 Your Belle-Plante is a pig with golden bristles. ' 
 
 "My father bit his lips and went away. 
 
 "So, you see, Cornelius, the promise which my 
 father has given us holds but by a thread ; I am 
 expecting every moment to be called upon to marry 
 Belle-Plante, but I know very well what I will an- 
 swer. I am my father's daughter, but I am not 
 his slave ; he did not buy me at the fair like one of 
 his oxen ; I did not grow in his furrows like one of 
 his ears of corn. Let him take the fortune which 
 comes to me from my mother ; let him take it all, 
 if he will ; but make me renounce you, Cornelius ! 
 Oh, no. Monsieur Desallemagnes, that shall not be ; 
 church-warden though you are, that shall not be. 
 If you become rich, Cornelius, if your name, as yet 
 unknown, shall be illuminated with glory, come and 
 get me ; if you remain poor and obscure, wait for 
 me. I am yours, yours, do you understand? I can- 
 not live without you any more than the leaf can 
 live without the branch, any more than the rose 
 can live removed from its stem. Life, you see, is 
 a litter; we must carry it together." 
 
BELLE-PLANTE and CORNELIUS. Il9 
 
 "Bravo, Louise! bravo!" shouted Cornelius. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the waiter, knocking lightly at 
 the door, "you called. What do you wish?" 
 
 "That you should go away, and directly," an- 
 swered Cornelius. 
 
 "Nevertheless, make haste to become a great 
 man. You ought already, idler though you are, 
 to have a halo around your head as big as a rain- 
 bow. Do not place too much trust in what I have 
 just said ; fear that I may allow myself to be tempted 
 by the merry life which Belle-Plante promises me. 
 Jeanne, who was a servant in his house, and whom 
 he discharged — poor girl — because she had too good 
 an appetite, tells marvellous things about him. In 
 the first place, his servants eat with him; or, to 
 speak more exactly, he eats with his servants. The 
 vegetables of the poor are the only ones allowed 
 upon his table ; he is especially fond of the bean, 
 because this sober and frugal vegetable carries its 
 own seasoning with it. He has beef broth only on 
 the day dedicated to the local patron saint. Conse- 
 quently at his house there are no cramps, no stom- 
 ach-aches, no indigestion; besides, these meals, al- 
 ready so agreeable in themselves, are seasoned with 
 the most pleasing conversation. Belle-Plante talks 
 of nothing but the miserable weather and the diffi- 
 culty of making both ends meet ; if it rains, he cries 
 that the crops are going to be drowned ; if it is a 
 sunny day, he says that they are going to be roasted. 
 
120 BBtLB-PLAKTE AITD COBKELIUS. 
 
 One of his favorite theses is that garlic and shallot, 
 being vegetables which nature has been careful to 
 spice itself, should be eaten without salt, or else 
 that the less oil a salad contains the better it is. 
 He even goes so far as to say that oil is a slow 
 poison. 
 
 "In the third place, our asparagus grows as thin 
 and slender as knitting-needles. In vain do I watch 
 it and water it and feed it with compost ; nothing 
 has any effect. He, on the contrary, has beautiful 
 asparagus. It is true that not a bunch of it gets 
 into his kitchen ; but at least I shall have the ad- 
 vantage of going in company with a donkey to sell 
 them in the market, as well as the grapes from his 
 trellises and the fruits from his orchard ; that, you 
 will admit, will furnish me agreeable amusement. 
 So far Belle-Plante has taken these duties upon 
 himself. Why, then, does not the good God, to save 
 him this embarrassment, cause coin to grow upon 
 the branches of his trees? 
 
 "In the fourth place, Belle-Plante eats at home 
 as seldom as possible ; when he is offered a glass of 
 wine anywhere, he calls for the loaf under pretext 
 of breaking a crust, and thus manages to dine with 
 his host, who thought he was simply inviting him 
 to take some refreshment. You can see how that 
 will simplify my duty as cook. 
 
 "But there is another reason why you should 
 hasten to succeed : you have a second rival ; and this 
 rival is no one less than Panuche — the brilliant sex- 
 
/ 
 
 BELLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 131 
 
 ton, Panuche — who presents himself, backed by the 
 priest. The holy man's reasons for desiring me to 
 marry Panuche I do not wish to divine ; for a long 
 time he has beset my father with his recommenda- 
 tions of Panuche. Monsieur Desallemagnes, being 
 church-warden, dares not say no ; but, as Panuche 
 is little to his liking, he does not say yes. Mean- 
 while the priest does not get discouraged ; he courts 
 me in behalf of Panuche, while the latter is digging 
 in his garden . Must we not help one another ? Mak- 
 ing an excuse of having to talk to the church-war- 
 den about vestry affairs, he always comes to the 
 house at a time when he is sure not to find him, 
 and then he does me the honor to talk with me. 
 But guess what he says to me, Cornelius. He tells 
 me — and doubtless in the interest of Panuche — that 
 I have the eyes of a gazelle, a neck of ivory, the 
 hand of a goddess ; in short, he is an Abbe Bernis 
 in prose. The other day he so far emancipated him- 
 self as to kiss my goddess' hand, and I very re- 
 spectfully requested him not to repeat the perform- 
 ance ; but it seems that it takes a bishop's order to 
 oblige him to be prudent. Yesterday, while I was 
 leaning over my work, he took me by surprise, and 
 stole — for I can give no other name to his ugly act 
 — a big kiss from my lips. I was so amazed that I 
 did not have the presence of mind to box his ears. 
 But let Monsieur Bernis come back; and, priest 
 though he is and church-Warden though my father 
 is, he will find the blow ready and hot. If he ex- 
 
122 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNBLtUS. 
 
 pects to excuse himself by saying that he took my 
 lips for a rose and could not resist the desire to taste 
 its perfume, he is mistaken. Let him persist in tak- 
 ing my lips for a rose, and I will show him that the 
 rose has thorns. 
 
 "Do you understand, savant — you who under- 
 stand everything — how it is that there are women 
 who abandon themselves to a priest? A priest, Cor- 
 nelius ! Why, there is nothing so lugubrious as a 
 priest! Their black gown casts a reflection of 
 mourning on everything that surrounds them ; they 
 smell of the mouldy dust of the church ; there radi- 
 ates from them an icy something that resembles the 
 emanations from vaults. It seems to me that their 
 presence ought to be enough to wither a bouquet 
 upon one's bosom. There are priests who are hand- 
 some ; there are some who are amiable. And why 
 should there not be? But the beauty of those who 
 are handsome is like that of a gloomy statue over a 
 grave, and the smile of those who are amiable re- 
 sembles a tuft of flowering plants growing out of 
 the hollow of a death's-head. Keally, Cornelius, 
 when this black man says sweet things to me, I feel 
 as if I had suddenly heard a serpent singing like a 
 nightingale, or had seen a black frog assume the 
 wings of a butterfly, and, flying away from its reeds, 
 settle upon the flowers. You see, Cornelius, if I 
 had the misfortune to love a priest, I should be 
 afraid, whenever we happened to be together in a 
 lonely spot, that the devil might come to seize him 
 
BELLE-PLANTE and CORNELIUS. l33 
 
 in my arms, or that the fire of hell might commxmi- 
 cate to his gown. I should always fear lest his 
 kisses might leave a scar upon my cheek. 
 
 "And yet, why should not priests love like other 
 men? Has an angel, while they were asleep, taken 
 their heart from their hreast and replaced it with a 
 stone? Is it more reasonable to say to a priest 
 'You shall not love,' than to say it to a tailor or a 
 shoemaker? No, I will never believe that God, who 
 is the author of all good sense, has made a precept 
 so senseless. In fact, is chastity really a virtue? 
 What sort of a virtue is that which is useful to no 
 one, which subjects those who practise it to endless 
 struggles and to the tortures of the martyr, and 
 which, if everybody practised it, would bring the 
 world to an end? 
 
 " If it is pleasing to God that priests do not marry, 
 it must be displeasing to him that other men marry ; 
 now, if it is only by offending him that the inter- 
 minable garland of the generations can be continued, 
 why does he not cause men to grow upon the 
 branches of oaks and women to bloom upon the 
 branches of rose-trees? Of what does happiness in 
 this world consist, Cornelius? Of satisfied desires; 
 I had rather have a glowing coal in the middle of 
 my heart than an unsatisfied desire. Those old 
 abbes of the councils, those old mitred bishops, with 
 their pointed beards, would have believed themselves 
 damned forever if they had put a man in a boiler 
 even for five minutes ; but they confine the priests 
 
134 BELLE-PLAJSTTE AND C0ENELIU8. 
 
 all their lives in celibacy as in a fiery boiler ! They 
 make their youth a gridiron ! 
 
 " You hate priests, Cornelius ; I pity them. Those 
 who are jealous of them are very foolish, and those 
 who gratuitously insult them are very cruel ! At 
 what price have they gained this tile-covered roof, 
 smoking gloriously amid roofs of thatch? How 
 these unfortunates must suffer when they see a 
 young and pretty woman leaning on her husband's 
 arm, or a pink baby extend its little white arms to 
 its father from its cradle ! Their divine Master suf- 
 fered but a day ; but their passion is felt at every 
 hour and throughout their life. Yet for whom do 
 they suffer? Of what use is this burning crown of 
 thorns which is put upon their head? Of what use 
 this gall and vinegar which they are made to drink? 
 When in the full vigor of their spring, when the 
 stormy flood of the passions mounts and boils within 
 them, they are reduced to the condition of old men — 
 not their heads alone, but their hearts are tonsured. 
 
 " Is it not painful, Cornelius, to think that this 
 severing by the scissors of these black or brown locks 
 means the mowing down of all the flowers of their 
 life, leaving them only the dry stalks of old age ! 
 That month of love, that month so sweet, but so 
 short, which is the whole of existence, that beauti- 
 ful month so full for others of roses, perfumes, sun- 
 shine — by what right has it been changed for them 
 alone into a dark and gloomy month, full of ice and 
 frost? And you, my God, have made them this 
 
BELLE-PLAlirTE AND COBS^BLIUS. 135 
 
 existence! But why then have you made them 
 butterflies if you do not wish them to seek the roses? 
 Why have you given them thirst if you have for- 
 bidden them the clear water of the fountains? Is 
 it, then, absolutely necessary that they should be 
 either unhappy or guilty? And yet these are your 
 ministers ; these you have chosen to open and close 
 the doors of your heaven. By what caprice, then, 
 have you placed upon your faithful servants a 
 heavier burden of miseries than upon us who are in 
 continued rebellion against your precepts? 
 
 "And again, as if their tOrment were not already 
 cruel enough, they must be the confidants of those 
 wild young girls who have nothing but sins of love 
 to confess ! Do you not understand, then, that the 
 priest feels upon his lips all the kisses that they 
 have given ? Those words of love which they have 
 whispered, and which reveal to him a paradise in 
 which he is forbidden to set foot, flutter about him 
 like glowing wings ; they disturb, like an echo from 
 hell, the prayers which he addresses to God, and at 
 night they change into white young girls who come 
 to torment his dreams. In those delicious sins which 
 you expect him to indignantly denounce he would 
 give anything in the world to have been a partici- 
 pant. The position in which you place them is that 
 of a hungry man whom you force to serve a good 
 meal; they resemble — pardon my trivialities, Cor- 
 nelius, as I pardon yours — a dog to whose neck a leg 
 of roast mutton has been fastened by his master. 
 
136 BELLB-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 
 
 " And yet these men who are submitted to such 
 severe and difficult trials are not promised a par- 
 adise better than that of others if they resist, or a 
 hell less fiery if they succumb. There is a bridge 
 over which the crowd pass conveniently and with- 
 out danger ; the priests, on the contrary, are obliged 
 to cross the river on a tight-rope, with a fragile 
 hemp-stalk for a balancing-pole. Nineteen out of 
 twenty are drowned, and he who reaches the other 
 shore safe and sound has, after all, the same bank, 
 the same sky, the same verdure that the crowd en- 
 joy. Is that just, Cornelius? 
 
 " I hope that you will not begrudge me this dis- 
 cussion. You know very well that I cannot always 
 be throwing grain to my white doves, as the poets 
 say, or making cream cheeses, as Belle-Plante says. 
 Unable to babble with my tongue, which has no 
 sister here, I babble with the point of my pen ; who 
 could hold it for a crime? 
 
 "Adieu, Cornelius, that is to say, vale. For what 
 should I do with the Latin that you taught me if I 
 did not expend it upon you? Vale, then, Corne- 
 lius, vale et me ama, as Cicero said." 
 
OHAPTEE VII. 
 
 Meanwhile Belle-Plante pursued his project of 
 marriage with the tenacity which misers show in 
 everything. He was gallant with Louise. He said 
 to her: "I have bought at the Dornecy fair a pair 
 of oxen, on which I shall certainly make three hun- 
 dred francs;" or else: "My oats this year will bring 
 me at least a thousand francs;" or else again: 
 " Nothing is wasted in my house ; the prodigal steps 
 upon a grain of wheat ; the orderly man picks it up ; 
 every day he puts others beside it, and at the end 
 of the year he has a bushel." And he was aston- 
 ished that Louise should resist such a powerful 
 means of seduction. He did not court her openly, 
 but through Father Desallemagnes. 
 
 He resolved to address himself to him. 
 
 But, first of all, Belle-Plante had to get some 
 new clothes ; for there can be no marriage without 
 a new coat ; and I very much doubt if the omission 
 of this formality, if the case were handled by a good 
 lawyer, would not nullify the matrimonial contract. 
 So Belle-Plante submitted to this necessity, but not 
 
138 BBLLE-PLANTB AKD COEKBLIUS. 
 
 without a long and comprehensive calculation of the 
 means of rendering the burden as light as possible. 
 
 One morning he called upon Couture, the local 
 tailor. 
 
 "Couture," said he, "you must make me a coat." 
 
 This word coat on the lips of Belle-Plante made 
 such a deep impression of astonishment upon Cou- 
 ture that his legs uncrossed, and he found himself 
 sitting on his bench like a natural person, without 
 understanding how it had happened. 
 
 "Yes, "said Belle-Plante, who noticed his aston- 
 ishment, " a coat. Do you hear me, you scamp?" 
 
 " Very willingly. Monsieur Belle-Plante," said the 
 tailor; "but are your father's old clothes, then, all 
 worn out at last?" 
 
 "And why should you blame me, Couture, for 
 wearing my father's old clothes? Am I not my 
 father's heir, Monsieur Couture?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly you are, in your right. Your 
 father's old vests fitted you wonderfully. Such 
 things are precious relics, to which a son should 
 cling as long as possible." 
 
 "If you wish to retain my custom," said Belle- 
 Plante, " this coat must be firm among the firmest, 
 and you must not be saving of thread." 
 
 " Monsieur Belle-Plante, I will make it as firm as 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND COKKBLIUS. 129 
 
 a monument. It shall be a coat that will wear out 
 three Belle-Plantes, and I will sew it, if you like, 
 with fishing-twine. What color shall this coat be?" 
 As Belle-Plante was reflecting, the tailor added : 
 
 " Do you wish it to be a black coat, like the may- 
 or's, or a coat of the color of the firmament, such 
 as the sheriff has ordered?" 
 
 "You, Couture, you work for the sheriff? Do 
 you expect me to believe that?" 
 
 "Why, then. Monsieur Belle-Plante, if you doubt 
 it, here is his measure. You see for yourself, on 
 this strip of paper: 'M. Orgenneau, Sheriff of 
 Clamecy. ' " 
 
 "That may be," said Belle-Plante; "but, inas- 
 much as you work for the sheriff, I am going away. 
 The prices of the sheriff's tailor must be too high." 
 
 "Oh! I was only joking," said Couture, seeing 
 that he was caught in his own trap. " The fact is 
 that I work only for the natives of the neighbor- 
 hood. But what color shall your coat be?" 
 
 " Earth color, " said Belle-Plante, " as well as the 
 pantaloons and waistcoat." 
 
 " What, Monsieur Belle-Plante ! You are to have 
 pantaloons and waistcoat also? You are a fine- 
 looking man, a -very fine-looking man, one of the 
 finest-looking men in Clamecy ; but in your coat 
 
130 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 you will look a hundred times better still. Be- 
 lieve me, there is nothing like the tailor's handi- 
 work to improve a young man. I am going to 
 send my wife to Olamecy at once to get the cloth." 
 
 "Not so fast, Monsieur Couture, if you please; I 
 am no idler, and I will go buy my cloth myself. " 
 
 "As you like. Monsieur Belle-Plante ; but then 
 if you are cheated, so much the worse for you ; it 
 will not be my fault, and I wash my hands of the 
 matter." 
 
 "All right!" said Belle-Plante ; "how many yards 
 of cloth will it take to make me a full suit?" 
 
 "Four yards, Monsieur Belle-Plante — not an inch 
 less ; and then there will be hardly enough to cover 
 the buttons." 
 
 " Four yards ! do you wish, then, to make a dress- 
 ing-gown for yourself at my expense? Noyon, of 
 Clamecy, would require only two yards. That is 
 what comes of patronizing one's neighbors." 
 
 "You are mistaken, Monsieur Belle-Plante; you 
 do not know Noyon . There is no tailor in the depart- 
 ment whose scissors are more voracious. He would 
 ask you for six yards for a full suit, and I will re- 
 turn to you the pieces." 
 
 "Two yards," said Belle-Plante; "otherwise we 
 will assume that I have said nothing of the matter." 
 
BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 131 
 
 " So be it — two yards ; but then your coat will 
 have no tails." 
 
 "And of what use are the tails of a coat? What 
 signifies the yard of cloth that flaps about a man's 
 thighs, carefully gathering the mud of the streets. 
 When he passes among thorns, does he not run a 
 risk of losing his coat-tails? God is a much better 
 tailor than man. See how he has dressed the ani- 
 mals ! Have they on their bodies an inch of skin 
 which is not of use? Let the tailors pattern after 
 him." 
 
 "Undoubtedly, Monsieur Belle-Plante, you are 
 right ; your criticism is excellent and very ingenious, 
 and I should like to have said what you have just 
 said; but then, fashion is custom, and custom, as 
 you know, reigns despotically over society." 
 
 "Well, three yards. Monsieur Couture." 
 
 "Four yards, or your coat will have only one 
 tail." 
 
 " Well, have four yards, then, miserly cloth-eater. 
 But," he added to himself, "once is not a custom, 
 and if I am caught this way again " 
 
 "And the buttons, Monsieur Belle-Plante?" 
 
 " Another absurdity of the tailors. They put but- 
 tons and button-holes on all their coats, and we 
 never button them. Is it not as if a blind man 
 
132 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 were to wear glasses? What perverse and corrupt 
 creatures these tailors are !" 
 
 "I hope," said the tailor, "that there is nothing 
 personal in your remark, and I beg you to observe, 
 moreover, that I am not the inventor of buttons." 
 
 " It is true, " said Belle-Plante ; " I do you so much 
 justice : you never invented anything. But, to dis- 
 pose of this matter, there are some metal buttons 
 on one of my father's old coats, and I will use those. " 
 
 " What are you thinking about. Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante? I undoubtedly profess a very great respect 
 for your father's wedding-coat, as well as for the 
 buttons with which it is trimmed ; but my impar- 
 tiality obliges me to tell you that they look more 
 like pot-lids than buttons. You cannot attach such 
 old iron to a new coat ; you would look like a dealer 
 in cymbals, and you would suffer in the public es- 
 teem. 1 am not even sure that the police would 
 not forbid you to wear such buttons, on grounds of 
 public safety. Suppose that you were standing at 
 your window, and one of your buttons should fall 
 off, and " 
 
 "And I tell you that they must be used." 
 
 "Then you will put them on yourself; to do it 
 you will need bolts and nuts. However, I wash 
 my hands of the matter ; but I do not wish the chil- 
 
BELLE-PLAKTE AND COKNELIUS. 133 
 
 dren to say when they see you pass, 'It was Couture 
 who put those buttons on Monsieur Belle-Plante's 
 coat. ' Do you understand my scruples, Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante?" 
 
 "Do, then, as you like, detestable hunchback! 
 But I await your bill." 
 
 Sunday morning Belle-Plante went to Couture's. 
 His coat was ready and hung on a hook in the 
 shop. Belle-Plante tried it on ; but, to have an ex- 
 cuse for beating the tailor down, he pronounced it 
 a very bad fit. The tailor, on his side, in order to 
 be paid more willingly and more dearly, maintained 
 that the coat fitted him divinely. Thus in every 
 question each affirms or denies, according to his own 
 interest. The fact is that the coat was neither a 
 good nor a bad fit. 
 
 "Well," said Belle-Plante, "how much do you 
 want for your work?" 
 
 "For my work and my materials, if you please." 
 
 "How! what materials? Did I not furnish the 
 cloth?" 
 
 "Is there nothing but cloth in a coat? See, here 
 is your bill; that will tell you what I have fur- 
 nished." 
 
 "I will examine it," said Belle-Plante, putting it 
 into his pocket. 
 
134 BELLB-PLANTE AKD COENELIFS. 
 
 "You will examine it later as much as you like; 
 but it is receipted, and I need the money." 
 
 " What, knave ! Do you distrust me, then?" 
 
 And the tailor, who had no further reason to be 
 cautious with Belle-Plante, because he knew that 
 this was the only coat that he would ever make for 
 him, said: 
 
 "Monsieur Belle-Plante, your father called me 
 Monsieur Couture." 
 
 "Monsieur Couture! A fine monsieur you are! 
 A beggar without a sou, monsieur ! The word must 
 have been invented for you." 
 
 "If you go on in that way," said the tailor, "I 
 will add your insults to the bill." 
 
 " Well, then, animal — read me your bill ! Do you 
 expect me to take the trouble to decipher your scrib- 
 bling?" 
 
 " 'For cutting a yellow coat, and pantaloons and 
 waistcoat of the same color, six francs twelve sotis. ' " 
 
 "Too much by half," said Belle-Plante. 
 
 "Do you know," answered the tailor, "how much 
 time I have spent on this work ; how much thread 
 and wax I have used, and how many needles I have 
 broken?" 
 
 "Not at all," said Belle-Plante. 
 
 "Then why do you say that it is too much?" 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 135 
 
 "Because it is too much." 
 
 "That's the way they all talk," said Couture; 
 " the doctor, who takes one franc a visit ; the lawyer 
 who charges six francs for three dozen words ; the 
 office-holder, who receives a thousand francs a month 
 for a hundred signatures — all say to the working- 
 man who asks two francs for a day's work that it is 
 too much! You, Monsieur Belle-Plante, are not 
 one of those people by education and capacity ; but 
 you talk as they do." 
 
 " Well, here are your six francs sixty centimes, " 
 said Belle-Plante. " Now give me a receipt. " 
 
 "Wait a bit; we are not yet at the end. 'For 
 lining, three francs ' " 
 
 " Lining, lining ! And who told you to line my 
 coat? I will not pay for this lining." 
 
 "We shall see," said Couture; and he continued : 
 " 'For buttons, three francs.' " 
 
 "What! three francs for buttons! You are 
 joking. Monsieur Couture. Take back your buttons 
 directly. I can get as handsome ones for one franc. " 
 
 " I, " answered Couture, " am a tailor who sews, 
 not a tailor who unsews. 'Eeceived the sum of 
 twelve francs twelve sous. (Signed) Couture. ' " 
 
 " Knock four francs off that, and I will pay you. " 
 
 "I will not knock off a sou." 
 
136 BBLLE-PLANTE AKD COENELIUS. 
 
 "Will you take ten francs?" said Belle-Plante ; 
 "yes or no?" 
 
 "No," said the tailor. 
 
 "Well, then, you can sue me." 
 
 " It is you who will sue me to get your coat, for 
 I shall keep it as security for what you owe me. " 
 
 " Couture, " said Belle-Plante, "you have played 
 me a dirty trick, and you will lose my custom." 
 
 "Fine custom, yours!" said Couture. "Much 
 water will flow under the hridge hefore you order 
 another coat." 
 
 Belle-Plante was generally too good a manager 
 to pay a total without getting a reduction, but this 
 time he had to pay to the last sou, the tailor per- 
 sisting in keeping the coat if he were not paid. So 
 he took two six-franc pieces from his pocket with 
 a sigh and handed them to Couture. 
 
 "Twelve sous more," said Couture. 
 
 "I have only twelve francs; perhaps you will 
 oblige me to change a three-franc piece for twelve 
 sous ! " 
 
 But Couture was inflexible, and Belle-Plante, to 
 his great regret, was forced to yield. 
 
 An hour later Belle-Plante was clad in the com- 
 plete epidermis which Couture's scissors had cut for 
 him. He had had a shirt plaited, whose starched 
 
BELLB-PLAKTE AND CORNELIUS. 137 
 
 collar rose around his cheeks like a brick set edge- 
 wise; and, to cap the climax of his seductive 
 costume, he had borrowed of his servant, although 
 it was then dog-days, a pair of Angora gloves. 
 Really Belle-Plante was not altogether ugly in his 
 new coat; but he was as stiff, awkward, and 
 embarrassed in this unusual costume as a wolf 
 would be in the skin of a deer. 
 
 In this magnificent costume he went to the house 
 of M. t)esallemagnes. Father and daughter were 
 then in the kitchen. 
 
 "Goodness! Monsieur Belle-Plante," said Father 
 Desallemagnes, "how fine you look!" 
 
 " Cloth at fifteen francs a yard. Monsieur Desalle- 
 magnes, nothing less." 
 
 Louise understood at once what Belle-Plante 's 
 full suit meant. Her disposition suddenly soured. 
 She did not pout, because when she pouted she did 
 not look well; but she gently thrust forth, from the 
 velvet of her pretty paw, five little claws as hard 
 and sharp as needles, and made ready to scratch the 
 nose of the hideous bulldog who dared to ask her 
 hand in marriage. 
 
 " One could not too highly compliment Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante on the color that he has chosen," said 
 Louise; "he looks like a hare in a shirt-collar." 
 
138 BELIiE-PLAKTB AKD COKNELIUS. 
 
 "Always facetious, Mademoiselle Louise," said 
 Belle-Plante, calmly. 
 
 "And your gloves," said Louise, '-' produce a mag- 
 nificent effect at the end of your long, yellow arms. 
 Are you afraid of getting chilblains?" 
 
 Belle-Plante was beginning to get angry, espe- 
 cially as the money which he had spent upon his 
 dress had failed in its effect. 
 
 "And why should I not wear gloves?" said he; 
 "have I not the means? There are people in your 
 commune who wear them and who have not a sou. " 
 
 " Well, at any rate they do not borrow them of 
 their servant." 
 
 " The only difference, mademoiselle, is that they 
 borrow them of their merchant." 
 
 Louise, wounded in the person of Cornelius, 
 started like a lioness about to throw herself upon 
 the imprudent assailer of her young. 
 
 "Perhaps," said she, "that is due to the fact that 
 the persons of whom you speak have some relative, 
 some good brother perhaps, who has stripped them 
 of a part of their inheritance." 
 
 " Well, " said Father Desallemagnes, who under- 
 stood nothing of this conversation, "perhaps you 
 will tell us for what purpose you have gone to the 
 expense of a coat?" 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 139 
 
 "In truth, that concerns you," said. Belle-Plante, 
 " and if you will send for a bottle of wine, I will 
 tell you why while we break a crust." 
 
 " Since you talk of breaking a crust, I may as 
 well invite you to breakfast." 
 
 "As you like, but I have already eaten at the 
 house, and I accept simply not to disoblige you." 
 
 "I was far from expecting such politeness." 
 
 " It is undoubtedly your yellow coat that inspires 
 you to breakfast twice," said Louise. 
 
 " I know many who would not do as much to please 
 a young lady. " 
 
 "Louise," said M. Desallemagnes, "I do not know 
 what is the matter with you to-day; get us some- 
 thing to eat, since Monsieur Belle-Plante is willing 
 to accept our breakfast. Prepare some ham, kill a 
 chicken, make an omelet; we must do honor to 
 Monsieur Belle-Plante's new suit." 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Desallemagnes, not so much cere- 
 mony over my suit, I beg of you!" 
 
 But the fact was that internally he voted for the 
 murder of the chicken. He calculated that he could 
 dispense with eating at home for the balance of the 
 day, and he looked upon this saving as in some sort 
 a deduction from Couture's bill. 
 
VIII. 
 
 While Louise was getting breakfast, Belle-Plante 
 walked up and down the kitchen with the farmer, 
 conversing on various very instructive matters, such 
 as oats, hay, and the price of cows at the last 
 Clamecy fair. The editor of an agricultural jour- 
 nal could have made an excellent article from their 
 conversation. Suddenly Belle-Plante left his com- 
 panion and approached Louise. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said he, "will you allow me an 
 observation?" 
 
 "Two, if you like," answered Louise. 
 
 " Well, it seems to me that you are putting far 
 too much butter in that omelet." 
 
 "Eeally!" said Louise; "you will soon prove to 
 me that butter is a slow poison, too." 
 
 Just then a beggar appeared at the door. 
 
 "Monsieur Belle-Plante," said Louise, delighted 
 to play a trick and at the same time perform an 
 act of charity, "you see that I am busy; will you 
 give this poor man a sou for me?" 
 
 "Why, with much pleasure, mademoiselle. Mis- 
 
 140 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 141 
 
 fortune has always been honorable in my eyea. 
 A glass of water given to a poor man is to God 
 the most agreeable act that one can perform ; and 
 if you thought that a glass of water could take the 
 place of a piece of money, I would willingly give 
 him a jugful. ..." 
 
 "Are you determined, then, to make me leave 
 my work, Monsieur Belle-Plante? Then you must 
 hold the handle of the frying-pan." 
 
 "I should like that almost as well," said Belle- 
 Plante, "and, if you are determined to bestow your 
 alms-yourself " 
 
 " No, no, " said Louise, " you would spot your new 
 coat. Cloth at fifteen francs. Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante!" 
 
 Belle-Plante, seeing that it was necessary to com- 
 ply, took from his pocket a big bag, and drew from 
 the bottom of it four bad Hards, and let them fall 
 as ostentatiously as possible into the poor man's 
 hat. The beggar, in honor of such magnificent 
 charity, began to mumble one of his finest prayers. 
 
 Belle-Plante, looking sidewise into the kitchen 
 and noticing that Louise's back was turned, said to 
 the beggar: "You have swindled me out of a sou, 
 you wretch! But if ever you appear at. my door, 
 I will set my dogs on you." 
 
142 BELLE-PLANTB AND COENBLIUS. 
 
 The breakfast was soon ready. Belle :Plante ate 
 like a soldier just out of the hospital and drank in 
 proportion, but he did not breathe a word of the 
 affair that had brought him to the house. M. 
 Desallemagnes made it a point of conscience to let 
 him take his time. There must be an end to every- 
 thing, however, and when the last bit of omelet 
 was on his plate he said to him : 
 
 " Well, my boy, have you had enough breakfast?" 
 
 "I was waiting," answered Belle-Plante, turning 
 his eyes in the direction of Louise, "until we should 
 be alone." 
 
 "Oh, don't be embarrassed," said Louise; "I 
 know in advance what you are going to say : you 
 wish to ask my hand in marriage, do you not? 
 Well, my reply shall be soon given. Here it is: I 
 will not have you!" 
 
 "Was that what you came to ask?" said Father 
 Desallemagnes. 
 
 "You know how facetious Mademoiselle Louise 
 is. Monsieur Desallemagnes; but, even though she 
 were speaking seriously, is it not for you to direct 
 her? Should the cow guide the cow -herd? You 
 are a father or you are not ; if you are not, why do 
 you permit people to call you Father Desalle- 
 magnes?" 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 143 
 
 "Now that I am church -warden they call me 
 Monsieur Desallemagnes. " 
 
 "Well, so be it! You are and always will be 
 Monsieur Desallemagnes to me ; but you know very 
 well that women know nothing of business. Every- 
 thing that is done at the notary's is outside their 
 comprehension. Talk to them of the most impor- 
 tant negotiations, and if a violin is heard they 
 will run to the window. To try to get a serious 
 idea into a woman's head is like trying to plant an 
 oak in au egg-shell." 
 
 "I understand your reasoning; but, if Louise 
 does not love you " 
 
 "Are you one of those who think that love is 
 necessary to a marriage? What are a man 
 a^d woman who marry? Two beings of dif- 
 ferent sex who associate to work together and 
 propagate their kind. When the wife gets a good 
 supper for her husband and mends his shirts well, 
 when the husband brings his wife his wages and 
 goes to the wine-shop only on Sunday, do not the 
 two beings love each other sufficiently? They are 
 obliged to live under the same roof, before the same 
 fireside, in the same alcove ; in short, then, is it in- 
 dispensable that they should love each other in 
 order to live together? Does the soldier love his 
 
144 BBLLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 bedfellow? To make a pair of chickens, is it neces- 
 sary to take two fowls that love each other? Do 
 the beans love each other? Nevertheless, does that 
 prevent them from vegetating in perfect union 
 under the same bean-pod? And you, who have in- 
 scribed upon the tomb of Madame Desallemagnes 
 that she was a model wife, did you love her when 
 you married her? I tell you. Father Desalle- 
 magnes, in our society it is not persons but fortunes 
 that marry. A female field marries a male field, 
 when there is not too great a difference between 
 them in point of fertility and area ; but if a golden 
 louis should marry a copper sou I should call it 
 immorality, social disturbance, iacest! And be- 
 sides, Father Desallemagnes, how long does love last 
 among those who marry, supposing that it existed 
 before marriage? Love, you see. Father Desalle- 
 magnes, cannot be better compared than to thirst. 
 A.S long as you do not drink you are thirsty; as 
 soon as you have drunk the thirst disappears, and 
 then certainly you are more comfortable. The 
 newly married, Father Desallemagnes, do with 
 their love what prodigals do with their money ; they 
 expend so much of it every day that at the end of a 
 month it is exhausted. Look around you and see 
 how all the love marriages turn out. The first day 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 145 
 
 the husband kisses his wife, the second he turns his 
 back on her, and the third he beats her. In truth, 
 young people entertain singiilar illusions regarding 
 marriage. The fool marries a rose, and the next 
 day finds only a few rose-leaves on his pillow. But 
 do you know what the wise man marries. Father 
 Desallemagnes? He marries an oak. I say girls 
 should not be allowed to marry until they are sixty. " 
 
 "There is some truth in what you say; but not 
 only does my daughter not love you, she loves an- 
 other, it seems. There is in the world a certain 
 Cornelius." 
 
 "What! he! Cornelius! a prodigal, a savant, a 
 philosopher, a mathematician, a chemist, an inven- 
 tor ! Oh ! Father Desallemagnes, you would be the 
 most absurd of fathers if you were to give your 
 daughter to Cornelius ! But you will not do it, I 
 know; you would sooner confront thirty legal 
 summon?." 
 
 " I will do all that I can to make Louise listen to 
 reason; for, after all, you are a lad with good 
 lands; but then, if my daughter were to be unhappy 
 with you?" 
 
 " What are you talking about. Monsieur Desalle- 
 magnes? A woman unhappy with an income of 
 
 from five to six thousand francs ! With me your 
 10 
 
146 BBLLE-PXAKTE AND COENELItTS. 
 
 daughter would be the happiest wife in the depart- 
 ment. For her sake I would depart from my 
 economical principles ; I would not send her to the 
 fields ; I would permit her to make cake, and I would 
 allow her to work all day, if she chose, at little 
 tasks of pleasure, such for instance as making cream 
 cheeses. But Cornelius, what would he do with 
 her, the wretched savant? He would set her to 
 copying his memoirs." 
 
 "It is in vain for you to talk; I cannot give you 
 an answer without speaking first with Louise." 
 
 " Well, shall you be at Clamecy to-morrow at the 
 wood auction?" 
 
 " I shall be there. And you, shall you be there?" 
 
 "I shall take a turn in that direction; but wood 
 is too dear by half; I shall make no bid." 
 
 "Well, I will give you my answer." 
 
IX. 
 
 Meanwhile Louise was getting ready to go to 
 mass. She was reading, half -dressed — or half- 
 undressed, if that please you better — a letter 
 which Jeanne, her faithful servant, had just brought 
 her from Clamecy. It was from our friend Corne- 
 lius, and it reads as follows : 
 
 "Non semper Mspidos manent ! Pardon my 
 absent-mindedness, Louise; that means that fortune 
 is at last about to turn in our favor. I have in my 
 portfolio a magnificent discovery, a discovery that 
 promises us glory and wealth ; glory for both and 
 wealth for you alone, my Louise ! I say glory for 
 both, because the glory of a farnous man is a halo 
 that shines upon the woman who bears his name ; 
 and I say wealth for you alone, because what do I 
 need? Beefsteaks, Bordeaux, coffee, punch, and now 
 and then three or four savants around my table. 
 After that I care as little for money as a surfeited 
 dog cares for a carcass. But you, Louise, shall have 
 every day satin dresses that make a harmonious • 
 froufrou, and I will enwrap you in a network of 
 
 laces. 
 
 147 
 
148 
 
 BELLB-PLANTB AND COElfrELIUS. 
 
 " I like to believe that you know what a balloon 
 is. Nevertheless, in case you should not, I will ex- 
 plain to you this ingenious machine. The balloon, 
 called in the first place montgolfiere, after its inven- 
 tor, is a huge bag made of taffeta or simply 
 
 tiOUISB READING CORNELIUS' LETTER. 
 
 gummed cloth, and containing hydrogen, a gas 
 which, being about fourteen times lighter than the 
 ■ atmospheric air, lifts its envelope with it. So far 
 this admirable discovery has borne no fruit, or at 
 least none other than the gathering of curiosity- 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 149 
 
 seekers in the public squares and the killing of a 
 large number of cats, as well as of a few celebrated 
 men ; so far the aeronaut — that is, the aerial naviga- 
 tor — has been obliged to abandon himself to the 
 atmospheric currents, and to go like a feather fallen 
 from an eagle's wing, whither it pleased the wind 
 to carry him. But I, Cornelius Belle-Plante, have 
 found a way of steering the balloon. It will be as 
 docile under my hands as a boat under the oar 
 of a fisherman, and I will guide it through vast 
 fields of air like a horse led by the bridle. If Belle- 
 Plante should dare to say again in your presence 
 that I am good for nothing, you would answer 
 him : ' Nature has given man but four members, 
 feeble and bare ; the first person who placed a boat 
 upon the waves gave him fins ; your brother has 
 given him wings. ' 
 
 "You must understand, Louise, the full signifi- 
 cance of my discovery. Henceforth all transporta- 
 tion, all travel, will be done by balloon ; fast vehicles 
 and stage-coaches will disappear ; we shall keep our 
 balloon as we keep our carriage, and, instead of 
 highways, there will be nothing but little paths for 
 pedestrians. The fields which now serve to feed the 
 horses will be given over to the cultivation of grain, 
 and, not to waste the horses themselves, they will 
 be taken to the butcher and made into beefsteaks. 
 Perhaps that will be prejudicial to Belle-Plante, 
 whose estates consist almost entirely of meadows 
 and who has many horses ; but we shall easily find 
 
150 BBLLE-PLANTB AND COENBLIUS. 
 
 a way to compensate him from the product of my 
 discovery. 
 
 " On the other hand, between nations there will 
 be no more of those deep ditches which we call 
 rivers ; no more of those high and long walls which 
 the good God has capped with snow and ice as the 
 mason caps the wall of an enclosure with pieces of 
 glass. All countries will be explored. We shall 
 penetrate the interior of Africa more easily than the 
 house of a member of the Academy of Sciences ; we 
 shall make the tour of the earth as you make the 
 tour of your round table, and we shall be able to 
 measure its circumference almost to an inch ! And 
 to me, Cornelius, will the world be indebted for this 
 discovery ! Oh, Louise ! if I could embrace myself, 
 with what transports I would embrace myself ! 
 
 "You see, Louise, when my balloon is finished, 
 we shall take a little journey together to the islands 
 of the Pacific Ocean ; we shall traverse the air like 
 two birds carrying their nest; we shall feel the 
 wings of the angels who watch over the earth brush 
 against us as we go along. The sky will have be- 
 come as black as a grave-cloth; you will breathe 
 with difficulty ; you will shiver under your wadded 
 cloak, and the fire in the foot- warmer will go out ; 
 blood will sweat through the pores of your skin ; I 
 will speak to you, and you will see only the moving 
 of my lips. I understand that that is not pleasant; 
 but, on your return, what delight you will take in 
 describing it all to your companions ! 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 151 
 
 " We shall approach unknown shores ; we shall 
 spread among new people ihe benefits of European 
 civilization; we shall overwhelm them with nails, 
 little bits of glass, images of saints, and I shall 
 teach them geometry. They will worship us as 
 messengers from the gods, and perhaps they will 
 sacrifice to us men fattened expressly for us — these 
 good savages! 
 
 " To come back to my balloon. You will object, 
 perhaps, that my aerial navigators will be stopped 
 by the tempests and the violent currents of air, and 
 that then it will be necessary to establish in the air 
 taverns built on piles of hydrogen and fastened to 
 stakes with ropes, where travellers may await the 
 return of calm weather. I do not conceal the grav- 
 ity of your objection, and it shows your good sense, 
 my dear Louise ; but I must find above the regions 
 of the atmosphere a perfectly calm air, which I 
 shall navigate as if it were a lake. I might send 
 you the plan of my balloon, and you would see that 
 my apparatus is strong enough to overcome ordi- 
 nary atmospheric currents ; but I prefer to bring it 
 to you myself. 
 
 " Next Monday I shall be at Clamecy ; I wish to 
 make my balloon at Armes. Belle-Plante has a 
 large yard, which will be very useful to me in coat- 
 ing my cloth. Despite his avarice, I hope that it 
 will give him pleasure to receive me and give me 
 shelter for a few months. Besides, I am obliged to 
 make his house my headquarters ; with the money 
 
152 BELLE-PLANTE AND COESTELIITS. 
 
 that you have sent me I have bought four hundred 
 yards of cloth and two casks of drying-oil; when 
 my seat in the stage-coach is paid for, I shall not 
 have a sou left. 
 
 " I do not answer you in relation to what you tell 
 me of Belle-Plante and the priest : my letter would 
 be of unheard-of dimensions. We will talk of it 
 at leisure when I reach Armes. 
 
 " Your friend, 
 
 "Cornelius." 
 
 "P. S. — If there is any term in my letter which 
 you do not understand, you will ask Monsieur Guil- 
 lerand to explain it to you." 
 
 "Of course," said Louise, and she thrust Corne- 
 lius' letter into her bosom — a charming hiding- 
 place, where she kept each of Cornelius' missives 
 until another came — and started for church. 
 
 The mass was finished and Louise had just reached 
 home again, when the priest's servant came to tell 
 her that her master desired to speak to her. 
 
 "And what does your master want of me, Jeanne- 
 ton? He knows very well that I never go to the 
 parsonage. " 
 
 "I believe," said Jeanneton, "that he wishes to 
 hand you a paper which you lost in the church." 
 
 Louise quickly felt for her letter, and, perceiving 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AN'D CORNELIUS. 153 
 
 that it was gone, she followed Jeanneton without a 
 word. 
 
 "Here," said the priest, "is a letter addressed to 
 you, which the sexton found in your pew at 
 church." 
 
 "Ah!" said Louise, blushing to her temples, "I 
 thank you. Monsieur le Cure, and I will send a pair 
 of chickens to Monsieur Panuche to thank him for 
 his discretion." 
 
 As she was about to leave the priest detained her. 
 
 "It appears, mademoiselle," he said, "that you 
 love a certain Cornelius?" 
 
 "A certain," said Louise, drawing herself up to 
 her full height; "what means this word certain? 
 You are called Monsieur le Cure; do you think, 
 then, that Cornelius is not as good as you are? 
 And who told you that I love Cornelius? It seems 
 to me, that you have permitted yourself the liberty 
 of reading my letter. To read a letter that is 
 addressed to another is a very evil thing in any 
 one ; it is to steal another's secrets ; but in a priest 
 it is much worse." 
 
 The priest remained unmoved under this re- 
 proach. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," he answered, "if you were ca- 
 pable of reflection, you would perceive without diffi- 
 
154 BELLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 culty that what you consider so evil in a priest is 
 his duty. The priest performs police functions over 
 the souls in his parish, as the commissioner per- 
 forms them over the inhabitants of the city. Must 
 he not know what is going on among those whose' 
 salvation is confided to his care? How could he 
 apply the remedy if he did not know the location of 
 the wound? But I myself have occasion to reproach 
 you, since at your last confession you concealed from 
 me your love for this Cornelius." 
 
 "And is it, then, a sin to love this Cornelius? 
 Well, if it is a sin, I confess it. Yes, I love Corne- 
 lius ! Cornelius, my savant, my madman, my bab- 
 bler! How handsome he is all the same, my 
 Cornelius, with his big, absent eyes that seem to see 
 the angels in heaven, and his broad forehead, be- 
 neath which one seems to hear the hum of machin- 
 ery ! But he is so good ; he has a heart so noble and 
 so generous that, were he bhnd, crippled, and one- 
 armed, I should love him still !" 
 
 " And yet you are aware that Cornelius is an im- 
 pious wretch; perhaps you yourself by indiscreet 
 confidences have provoked in him the anti-religious 
 words which he has written. " _ 
 
 " I will confess to you. Monsieur le Cure, that I 
 have concealed nothing from Cornelius; he sends 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 155 
 
 me the plans of his machines ; it would be ingrati- 
 tude on my part were I to conceal from him the 
 little incidents of my young girl's life." 
 
 "But this Cornelius — that is, Monsieur Cornelius 
 — is on the way to hell. This man's love will ruin 
 you. Should a woman fasten herself by the neck 
 to a man who is about to plunge into an abyss?" 
 
 "And Panuche's love would take me straight into 
 paradise, I suppose?" 
 
 "I do not tell you to love Panuche; but surely 
 you would do very well to marry him ! Panuche is 
 a man of exemplary morals, of solid devotion, who 
 would set you only good examples. " 
 
 "Yes, but he would make me get up at five 
 o'clock in the morning to ring the Angelus!" 
 
 " You entertain an illusion regarding the charac- 
 ter of Panuche. Panuche would be the meekest of 
 husbands, as he is the most regular of sextons. 
 Very far from tyrannizing over you, he would 
 submit, on the contrary, to your least wishes with- 
 out objection. You would be queen and mistress 
 in your own household." 
 
 " I understand ! Panuche is a good man ; he is 
 ugly, he is stupid; besides, he is your sexton; it 
 would not displease you were he to marry a pretty 
 woman, eh?" 
 
156 BELLE-PLANTE AKD COKSrELIUS. 
 
 "What do you mean, unhappy girl?" cried the 
 priest, furious that Louise had seen through him. 
 
 "I simply mean," answered Louise, "that I will 
 not marry Monsieur Panuche." 
 
 "And I tell you that you shall not marry your 
 Cornelius." 
 
 "Who will prevent me?" said Louise, measuring 
 the priest with her hlack eye. 
 
 "I!" 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes, I ! I will refuse you the sacrament of mar- 
 riage, as two impious persons." 
 
 " Oh, don't depend upon that. Cornelius does not 
 attach much importance to the sacrament of mar- 
 riage; at least, I presume so. We will marry as 
 Adam and Eve did." 
 
 "And you would dare to commit such a sacri- 
 lege?" 
 
 "Why not? Who is guilty of sacrilege — the 
 Church which refuses its blessing to a young couple, 
 or the young couple who, unable to obtain it, dis- 
 pense with it? Oh, Monsieur le Cure, we often eat 
 mutton without jelly." 
 
 " Louise, " said the priest, whose eyes were hke 
 two glowing coals, "if you would " 
 
 "If I would what?" 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 157 
 
 " Nothing, " said fhe priest; "but you know the 
 influence that I have over your father, who is 
 church-warden of the parish. I will induce him to 
 
 THE PRIEST PUT HIS ARM ABOUND HBB WAIST. 
 
 refuse you his consent, if you persist in marrying 
 Cornelius." 
 
 "And I will inform him of certain proposals 
 which you have made to me at confession." 
 
 "Louise, Louise!" exclaimed the priest; "do you 
 not understand me then?" 
 
158 BELLB-PLANTE AND COKKELIUS. 
 
 And he placed his arm ahout her waist. 
 
 "Yes," said Louise, "here is the proof that I 
 understand you." 
 
 And she gave him a blow which caused his glasses 
 to fall off. 
 
 The priest stood dazed for a moment, and then 
 ran for the key, which was in the door. Having 
 put it in his pocket, lie said : 
 
 "Mademoiselle, you must pay me for the insult 
 which you have offered me. " 
 
 Louise had noticed Panuche in the garden. She 
 opened the window. 
 
 "Monsieur Panuche!" she cried, "Monsieur le 
 Cure wants you !" 
 
 The priest, hearing Panuche's steps in the corri- 
 dor, , opened the door, and, leaning over toward 
 Louise's ear, he said to her: 
 
 " War without truce, if you reveal a word of what 
 has just happened !" 
 
 "We shall see," said Louise, "if you deserve my 
 indulgence." 
 
 And she withdrew as rapidly as a cat who has 
 just scratched. 
 
 The next day Belle-Plante and Father Desalle- 
 magnes met at the auction. Thanks to the depreci- 
 ating rumors which Belle-Plante had spread abroad, 
 
BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 159 
 
 the bids were timid and moderate; Belle-Plante's 
 bid exceeded those of the others by a few francs, 
 and he was proclaimed the purchaser, to the great 
 astonishment of Father Desa,llemagnes, but without 
 any indignation on his part ; for among merchants 
 mutual deceit is allowable ; theft then takes all sorts 
 of little mincing names, so that the police in pass- 
 ing salute it, and sometimes the sentinel presents 
 arms. On leaving the auction-roorn. Father Desalle- 
 magnes tapped Belle-Plante on the shoulder. 
 
 "Well, my boy," said he, "you have done a good 
 day's work." 
 
 "Not so bad, Father Desallemagnes ; Monsieur 
 Martin offered me ten thousand francs' profit on the 
 spot." 
 
 "You told me yesterday that you should not bid." 
 
 "I was not obliged to tell you that I should bid." 
 
 " True ; for a new recruit, you have managed the 
 matter very well. You will go far, Belle-Plante ; it 
 is I who tell you so." 
 
 " To be sure, Monsieur Desallemagnes ; and by the 
 way, your answer?" 
 
 " Nonsuited, my lad. Louise will not hear a word 
 of it." 
 
 "And you. Father Desallemagnes?" 
 
 "Well, I hardly know what to say. You have 
 
160 BELLE-PLANTB AN'D CORNELIUS. 
 
 exhibited yoiirself to-day in a very fine light ; but 
 then, how can you expect me to force Louise to 
 marry you?" 
 
 " See here, Father Desallemagnes, I never go by 
 two roads; give me your word that I shall marry 
 Louise, and I will give you a half -interest in my 
 bargain." 
 
 "Done!" said Father Desallemagnes; "it is 
 agreed." 
 
 "There, now you are a real father! But suppose 
 we put it in writing? Documents, you know, are 
 males, and words are only females." 
 
 "All right! we will soon call upon Monsieur 
 Arthus to get him to put his stamp upon our con- 
 tract; but just now we must think about our 
 breakfast." 
 
 "I have no money with me, Monsieur Desalle- 
 magnes." 
 
 "That's right! Always say that, and you will 
 get rich ; but with me you have no cause to spend 
 money." 
 
 "All right," said Belle-Plante, "for times are so 
 hard, and it is so difficult to make money !" 
 
 "Yet it seems to me that you did not have much 
 difficulty in making twenty thousand francs this 
 morning?" 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 161 
 
 "Do you think so, Monsieur Desallemagnes? 
 Well, I have not kept my feet in my slippers. You 
 do not know all the trouble that I have taken to 
 circulate among the commercial bigwigs false let- 
 ters announcing that the price of wood had fallen 
 one-third in Paris!" 
 
 Father Desallemagnes took his future son-in-law 
 to the Hotel de la Eeunion, and ordered a bountiful 
 breakfast; for he knew that Belle-Plante had a 
 good appetite when he ate with others. In the 
 same room some peasants and a gentleman in a 
 worn hat and a turned frock-coat were breakfasting. 
 
 "Do you know that individual?" said M. 
 Desallemagnes. 
 
 " Do I know him ! That is Monsieur Matronazy, 
 who lives beyond the bridge of Bethleem." 
 
 " Well, I will bet that it is not he who treats." 
 
 " And I that the two peasants have just borrowed 
 money of him." 
 
 "If that be so, we shall soon see Madame 
 Matronazy come in. " 
 
 In fact, the final " y" was hardly out of his mouth 
 when Mme. Matronazy entered. 
 
 "Come, Matronazy," she exclaimed, "dinner has 
 
 been waiting an hour for you ; you know very well 
 
 that I cannot dine without you!" 
 11 
 
163 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 "But, my dear, you see that I cannot leave 
 these gentlemen." 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur Matronazy !" said one of the peas- 
 ants, " if your wife will honor us with her company, 
 she will not make our party one too many." 
 
 "Why, it is true!" exclaimed Matronazy. 
 "Father Desanieres is right; why should you not 
 eat a bit with us?" 
 
 "Oh! I thank you. Monsieur Desanieres. I have 
 never eaten in a tavern, and I should not like to 
 begin to-day." 
 
 "How queer you are!" said Matronazy. "Are 
 you not with friends here? Are you afraid that 
 these worthy people will eat you? This good Papa 
 Desanieres, he will think that you refuse out of 
 pride. Madame Bourbon, a plate, if you please !" 
 
 Mme. Matronazy, after waiting to be further 
 urged for the sake of form, sat down at the table. 
 
 "Now for another!" said Father Desallemagnes. 
 "The procession is not yet finished." 
 
 And to be sure, five minutes later another 
 Matronazy arrived — Matronazy the younger — who 
 came in search of his mother that she might get 
 him some dinner, and who was grumbling because 
 he was hungry. 
 
 "Nothing is so annoying as this brat," said 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 163 
 
 Matronazy; "he is always hungry. It is neces- 
 sary to keep bread in his pockets. If the dessert 
 were here, we could get rid of him with some fruit 
 and a piece of bread. " 
 
 Father Desanieres, who was not hard of hearing, 
 ordered the dessert. 
 
 " There is a usurer who knows his trade, " said 
 Father Desallemagnes. 
 
 "I ask your pardon, Monsieur Desallemagnes," 
 answered Belle-Plante ; "he would have done much 
 better to eat his soup at home, and to include in the 
 interest the money which these people have spent 
 at the tavern." 
 
 On leaving the table, Belle-Plante and Father 
 Desallemagnes went to the office of M. Arthus ; but, 
 as the latter was at Oorvol, where he had been in- 
 vited to dinner by my uncle Benjamin, they were 
 obliged to postpone their business to another day. 
 
Cornelius arrived that evening. Belle-Plante's 
 cuckoo had just struck eight when he triumphantly 
 entered his yard, followed by his cloth balloon 
 and his two casks of drying-oil. Belle-Plante was 
 at supper ; but the truth is that you would not have 
 taken him for a man at supper. He was sitting at 
 a corner of the kitchen table ; before him were some 
 shallots, a little hillock of salt, and a hunch of black 
 bread. Cornelius, perceiving him, threw himself 
 upon his neck, pressed him in his arms, kissed him 
 tenderly, and in short did all that is usual under 
 such circumstances. This formality over, he said : 
 
 "You are going to serve me some supper, are you 
 not? I have eaten nothing since I left Auxerre, 
 and I am literally dying of hunger. " 
 
 "Eeally!" said Belle-Plante; " you ought to have 
 notified me in advance that you were literally dying 
 of hunger. Here are some shallots at your service. " 
 
 " You must be joking, " said Cornelius. " I admit 
 shallots in a sauce piquant, provided the dish be not 
 abused ; but I have never heard that a man made 
 
 164 
 
BELLE-PLAKTE AND COEKELIUS. 165 
 
 in the image of God could make a supper off shal- 
 lots. Go prepare me a chicken, my good Belle- 
 Plante." 
 
 " Impossible, my good Cornelius ; that would spoil 
 the pair!" 
 
 " Well, then, kill the pair ; I have appetite enough 
 to eat two chickens this evening, provided you will 
 help me." 
 
 " Do you not know, then, you, who are a savant, 
 that a pair of chickens sell for thirty sous at 
 Clamecy?" 
 
 " I understand, then," said Cornelius, "you think 
 such a supper too expensive; well, then, fry 
 some eggs." 
 
 "But, my dear fellow, eggs have their place as 
 well as chickens. To-morrow the servant is to take 
 them to Clamecy." 
 
 " The devil ! Is everything here, then, going to 
 Clamecy? If I had foreseen this, I would have 
 supped at Clamecy with the red gentleman who 
 made us laugh so much on the way, and who fairly 
 persecuted me to make me accept his invitation." 
 
 "You couldn't have done so well. But why 
 the devil do you come here ; you have no business 
 here, now that you have eaten up your inheri- 
 tance." 
 
166 BELLB-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 
 
 " Why do I come here? In the first place, I coine 
 to see you, to embrace you ; then I come to dream 
 on the banks of my dear Yonne; I come to drink 
 water from my fountain; I come to cUmb the 
 heights of the Plateau de la Chevre, where I have 
 so often watched our cow !" 
 
 "The devil!" said Belle-Plante. "I see that you 
 have much business here." 
 
 "That is not all; I come here to make a balloon. 
 I hope that you will have the kindness to give me 
 shelter for a few months, myself, my cloth, and my 
 drying-oil." 
 
 "Tour cloth and your drying-oil, those are well 
 enough; but as for yourself, that's another 
 matter." 
 
 " What ! you have no place here for me? A little 
 room with a window looking out upon the country 
 will be sufficient." 
 
 "Eeally, you are not exacting; but do you think 
 that I keep little rooms looking out upon the coun- 
 try especially to receive the first-comer who may 
 like to occupy them?" 
 
 " But really, you can find for me some little cor- 
 ner of your farm. " 
 
 "And I tell you that there is no little corner of 
 my farm. To be frank, I am in no humor to tire 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND' COKITELIUS. 167 
 
 myself out to feed an idler who has never known 
 how to do anything with his ten fingers." 
 
 " That is a prejudice common to you peasants — 
 that he who does not work with his arms does noth- 
 ing. You rise early in the morning, Belle-Plante ; 
 but sometimes I do not go to bed. Do you know 
 that I have discovered the means of steering bal- 
 loons?" 
 
 "You would have done better," said Belle-Plante, 
 " to have found the means of making potatoes grow 
 as big as pumpkins." 
 
 Just then the teamster who had transported Cor- 
 nelius' scientific baggage from Olamecy to Armes^ 
 tired of waiting in the yard, came in to claim his 
 pay. The good Cornelius had exaggerated but lit- 
 tle when he wrote Louise that he should reach Armes 
 without a sou : he had in his pocket only a twelve- 
 sow piece, and even that was badly worn. 
 
 "Belle-Plante," said he to his brother, "lend me 
 three francs that I may pay this man, for I have no 
 change." 
 
 "Nor I either," said Belle-Plante. 
 
 " Well, give him a six-franc piece : he will keep 
 the rest for his pour-boire." 
 
 "Why not give him a yard of your cloth?" 
 
 "Are you ma^?" said Cornelius, whose elevated 
 
168 BELLE-PLANTB AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 but simple and innocent soul had not yet compre- 
 hended the extent of his brother's niggardliness. 
 
 " It is you who are mad to expect that I am going 
 to keep you for three months, toasting your shins 
 at my fire, and pay the costs of your journey be- 
 sides." 
 
 "Wretch!" cried Cornelius, in indignation. "I 
 see who you are. Away with you! we are no 
 longer brothers !" 
 
 Just then the door of the room half opened. 
 
 " Monsieur Cornelius !" said a gentle voice. 
 
 And little light steps, steps of little flying shoes, 
 were heard in the yard. 
 
 Cornelius went out, and certainly you would have 
 gone out for less," for it was Louise who had called 
 him and who awaited him in the street. Cornehus 
 took her in his arms without ceremony and covered 
 her with kisses. 
 
 "Oh! Monsieur Cornelius," said Louise, when 
 she had been superabundantly embraced, "I did 
 not come here to be embraced !" 
 
 Just then one of Belle-Plante's dogs began to 
 bark. The savant gave him a kick in the ribs, and 
 said: 
 
 " There, take that to your master ; it will teach 
 you to be more polite to ladies." 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AS^D COENBLIUS. 169 
 
 "You are angry, Monsieur Cornelius," said 
 Louise. 
 
 "No longer; it is over. In fact, it is not his fault 
 that he is thus organized. I ought to have remem- 
 bered that it is as impossible for a miser to perform 
 an act of generosity as for a cripple to walk erect. " 
 
 "Of whom are you speaking?" said Louise, 
 smiling to herself. 
 
 "Pardon me, Louise, I am speaking of Belle- 
 Plante. Just imagine, he refuses to receive me !" 
 
 "I knew that in advance, Cornelius, and I have 
 so arranged things that you will not have to sleep 
 under the beautiful stars." 
 
 "Dear Louise," said Cornelius, taking her hand, 
 " I will demonstrate to whoever will listen to me 
 that you are the best of women. " 
 
 " That is an axiom, my friend ; the woman whom 
 one loves is always the best of all." 
 
 "I believe that you are mistaken, Louise." 
 
 Perhaps Cornelius would have begun a disserta- 
 tion upon love if he had not been interrupted by the 
 sound of a wagon. It was that of the teamster 
 who had brought his possessions. The poor man 
 had divined the poverty of Cornelius ; he had taken 
 pity on him, and had fully determined to ask him 
 nothing for his journey. 
 
170 BELLB-PLAKTB ABTD CORKELIUS. 
 
 ■ "By the way, Louise," said Cornelius, "have you 
 three francs?" 
 
 "Ah! the teamster!" said Louise; "it is true, I 
 had forgotten him. My good man, here are six 
 francs." 
 
 "But," said the teamster, " I have no change to 
 give you. " 
 
 "Keep it all, my good man; Monsieur Cornelius 
 gives you three francs for a pour-hoire. I know- 
 that such is his intention." 
 
 "You are good young people," said the teamster. 
 "I see that you love each other, and I will tell my 
 wife to pray God to let you marry. " 
 
 "Thank you, my friend," said Cornelius. 
 
 "Thanks also for me," said Louise. 
 
XI. 
 
 The two lovers sought in the fields a hollow, sur- 
 rounded by high hedges. It was then the end of 
 June ; the sky was as blue as if its azure had just 
 been washed ; the moon was shining in the heavens ; 
 the leaves were stirring in the wind as if caressed, 
 and wandering clouds, emanating from the grass, 
 were floating over the surrounding country. 
 
 "Jeanne! are you here?" said Louise. 
 
 Then the servant came out from behind a tree, 
 carrying on her arm a basket covered with a white 
 napkin. 
 
 "You have not supped. Monsieur Cornelius?" 
 said Louise. 
 
 "I confess it," answered the savant. 
 
 "And you have an appetite to eat two chickens?" 
 
 "I do not deny it; but are you, then, a fairy, 
 Louise? You know as much as I de ipso — that is, 
 about myself. Tell me, have you not forgotten the 
 little Latin that I taught you?" 
 
 "I have kept it carefully as a souA^enir of you." 
 
 "Say to me in Latin, 'I love Cornelius. ' " 
 
 171 
 
111% BELLB-PLAlJlB AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 "Amo Cornelius," said Louise, who always ac- 
 commodated herself to the little weaknesses of the 
 savant with charming grace. 
 
 "Very good, Louise, I thank you. But, by the 
 way, what has Jeanne in this white basket?" 
 
 "But did you not tell me that you have not 
 supped?" 
 
 "How did you divine it?" 
 
 "It is very difficult indeed to divine that Belle- 
 Plante would give you no supper!" 
 
 " Well, I love you as well as you love me, but I 
 should not have divined that. Louise, I must teach 
 you mathematics; with your sagacity you would 
 make surprising progress. " 
 
 The two lovers stopped under a big elm, at the 
 spot where the stream emptied into the Yonne. 
 Jeanne spread a napkin on the grass, and placed 
 her provisions upon it. 
 
 "What, Louise!" said Cornelius, noticing that 
 the servant had brought two glasses and two plates, 
 "are you going to sup with me?" 
 
 "Why not?" said Louise; "do you think that I 
 am so ill-bred as to allow those whom I invite to 
 my table to eat alone?" 
 
 " Heavens, Louise, how good you are ! You di- 
 vine everything, you foresee everything, you pro- 
 
BELIB-PLANTE AND COENBLIUS. 173 
 
 vide for everything ; you are an inexhaustible source 
 of intelligence and goodness. To the man you love 
 you are a guardian angel upon earth. But what 
 did your father think when he saw that you ate no 
 supper?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Louise; "I said that I was not 
 hungry, that I was indisposed, and that I was going 
 to bed. He thinks that I am sleeping pro- 
 foundly. My only fears are for this poor Jeanne, 
 who has very willingly become my accomplice, and 
 whom he may call if he does not find his nightcap 
 in the right place." 
 
 "Excellent girl!" said Cornelius. "If you like, 
 Louise, we will take her with us in our balloon." 
 
 "Yes, my friend, to the islands of the Pacific 
 sea." 
 
 "Wicked creature! By the way, did you ask 
 Monsieur Guillerand what the poles are?" 
 
 "Yes, I asked him; but he does not know what 
 you mean." 
 
 "The old donkey! Well, I will explain it to you. 
 Pass a knitting-needle through your ball of 
 yarn." 
 
 "Cornelius, mercy; no scientific discussion to- 
 night!" 
 
 Cornelius, stopped by the prayer of Louise like a 
 
174 BELLB-PLANTB AND COKNELItTS. 
 
 galloping horse seized by the bridle who still makes 
 a few leaps more, kept silence and poured out a 
 glass of wine. After taking a swallow, he seemed 
 utterly amazed. 
 
 "God forgive me!" he cried, "it is Bordeaux!" 
 
 " But did you not tell me that you like Bordeaux?" 
 
 " And how did you get it? Tour father has none 
 in his cellar." 
 
 " I sent to the city for it to celebrate your advent, 
 my friend." 
 
 Cornelius threw his napkin into the stream, over- 
 turned the bottle, broke the pie, crushed the chicken, 
 and threw himself upon Louise's neck. 
 
 "What! in Jeanne's presence!" said Louise, in 
 a low voice; "are you mad, Cornelius?" 
 
 "Yes, lam mad," he shouted. "Amen, as the 
 ancients said ; and at the present moment I could 
 embrace you before a whole council!" 
 
 " Think rather of your condition. Monsieur Corne- 
 lius ; it seems that as usual you have no money, my 
 friend." 
 
 "Pardon me, Louise; I have twelve sous in my 
 pocket." 
 
 Louise and Jeanne could not help laughing at the 
 simplicity of the good Cornelius. 
 
 "That," said Jeanne, "is a fine fortune on which 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 175 
 
 to live three months at the tavern ! Our canary 
 spends more than twelve sous in a week." 
 
 "And to think," said Louise, "that I lately 
 bought a cloak and a muff ! If you had written 
 me sooner that you were coming, I would have kept 
 this money for you !" 
 
 "I thought, Louise, that since I knew it, you 
 must know it also." 
 
 "Well, well," answered Louise, "that's another 
 of your adorable simplicities. Do you take me for 
 the good God?" 
 
 "Oh, Louise, the world would be too happy if 
 you were the good God !" 
 
 "No impiety, my friend! In our position, we 
 need the protection of heaven. You will lodge at 
 the tavern of Mother Simone, my old nurse; she 
 will give you, not all that you will ask her for, for 
 you are no more capable than a child of six months 
 of asking for what you need, but all that shall be 
 necessary. She has a large meadow behind her 
 house, where you can spread your cloth ; she places 
 it at your disposition. She will give you a pretty 
 little room whose window opens, not only upon the 
 country, but also upon your field. From your bed 
 you can watch your cloth, and Dragon, Mother 
 Simone's dog, will aid you. My nurse has been no- 
 
176 BBLLB-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 
 
 tified that you are coining to-night, and she expects 
 you." 
 
 " When my balloon is finished, I will settle with 
 Mother Simone. I will give her three thousand 
 francs for her daughter's dowry." 
 
 "Mother Simone lives alone; her only society is 
 Blanchette, her cow." 
 
 "Well, I will give her three thousand francs for 
 her cow." 
 
 "Now, Cornelius, if you are through with your 
 supper, we will return to the village." 
 
 "To crush a pie is not to eat it," said Cornelius. 
 " One moment more, Louise, I beg of you." 
 
 "Not more than five minutes," said Louise. 
 "Mother Simone is old; she goes to bed early, and 
 we must not keep her waiting." 
 
 Cornelius made no objection; he rose, took 
 Louise's hand, and they were getting ready to start, 
 when a man passed near them. 
 
 " That's Panuche, " said Jeanne. " I know him by 
 his sexton's air." 
 
 " Surely he does not come here to take the fresh 
 air," said Louise, intentionally raising her voice. 
 "And what do we care for M. Panuche?" 
 
 " He will tell the priest what he has seen, and the 
 latter is a man to rail at us from the pulpit." 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 177 
 
 " Pending the arrival of an opportunity to cut off 
 the priest's ears, you will permit me, Louise, to 
 send M. Panuche to take the fresh air in the Yonne. " 
 
 " You would be damned, Monsieur Cornelius, " said 
 Jeanne, " if you were to cause a sexton to take cold. " 
 
 "Besides," said Louise, "you are too generous to 
 deprive your native country of Panuche 's Veni 
 Creators." 
 
 Some distance from there they found Belle-Plante, 
 sitting on a piece of wood. 
 
 "Another spy!" said Jeanne; "to-morrow there 
 will be a fine scandal in the village." 
 
 "Louise," said Cornelius, "would it disturb you 
 if I should dust Monsieur Belle-Plante's jacket a 
 little?" 
 
 "What's the use?" said Louise; "the harm is 
 done, and I see but one remedy — that you come to- 
 morrow to ask my father for my hand in marriage. 
 He has sold me to Belle-Plante for I know not how 
 many cords of wood ; but the contract is not yet 
 signed. I know that they are to go to Clamecy to- 
 morrow for the purpose of signing a forfeiture deed 
 at the notary's. So you will have to be at the 
 house at eleven o'clock." 
 
 And, having shown him Mother Simone's house, 
 she went away. 
 
 12 
 
XII. 
 
 Mother Simone escorted Cornelius to his room. 
 The savant threw a glance around him, and saw 
 that Louise's eye had done its work there. His 
 room was a proposition in mathematics; nothing 
 superfluous, hut nothing lacking. A good bed 
 covered with green serge, a table covered with one 
 of Louise's shawls, a marble top commode, and a 
 blackboard — what more could a savant want? He 
 opened the window and looked at the view before 
 him. The birds had gone to rest, the insects were 
 asleep in the grass. To the sounds of living nature 
 had succeeded those of inanimate nature. The 
 wind rustled through the poplars; the Yonne 
 gravely flowed between the bluffs of its banks ; the 
 roar of the continually falling waters reached his 
 ears from the pass of Armes like the distant sound 
 of an orchestra. The trees were black and white ; 
 the river shone like a plate of polished steel ; and 
 the rough, dark, sombre surface of the Chevroches 
 woods looked in the moonlight like a sea covered 
 with foam. 
 
 178 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 179 
 
 "It's a pity," said Cornelius, "that Louise is not 
 here ; I would ask her this question : Which is the 
 better lodged, he who lives in a mansion in a street 
 of a great city, or he who has a hut whose window 
 opens upon the country? In the first place, the 
 owner of the mansion can only live in one room at 
 a time ; let us see, then, whether this room will be 
 as agreeable as the hut. 
 
 "Let A be the room in the mansion. In the 
 room A there will be first a carpet ; but the owner 
 of the room A cannot tread at one time upon a sur- 
 face greater than his feet ; now, let the dweller in 
 the hut attach a bit of carpet to the. soles of his 
 shoes, has he not a carpet? In the room A there 
 are mirrors; but in the room of the hut there 
 is a little looking-glass." Now, does not one see 
 himself in a little looking-glass as well as in a 
 large mirror? In the room A there is a clock with 
 a gilded knight or a chocolate-coloTed horse on top 
 of it ; but in the hut there is a cuckoo, and with a 
 cuckoo does not one know the time as well as with a 
 bronze clock? In the room A there is a chandelier, 
 but there is a ham, and even several hams, hang- 
 ing from the ceiling of the hut ; now prove to me 
 that a chandelier is handsomer than a ham, and I 
 will admit that the hut has lost its case. In the 
 
180 BELLE-PLAKTE AND COKNBLIUS. 
 
 room A there are tapestries and pictures ; but the 
 trees within the frames do not blossom in the month 
 of May, they are not covered with verdure in the 
 month of June, they do not turn yellow in Septem- 
 ber, and are not laden with snow in January. This 
 landscape is always inhabited by the same cows, the 
 same sheep, the same shepherd, and the same flute. 
 The river, prudent and well-bred, never overflows 
 into its fields ; the sky has always the same clouds, 
 and is never illuminated by flashes of lightning; 
 there is never an extra blade of grass upon the 
 rocks. In the hut, to be sure, there are never any 
 other pictures than those of the Death of Credit or 
 of The Wandering Jew, but the dweller in the hut 
 opens his window, or contents himself with pulling 
 aside his curtain, and the real country spreads out 
 before him. Each day gives it a new aspect ; to- 
 day there is a bull running through the fields; 
 to-morrow there is a donkey rolling in the grass. 
 In the morning a stage-coach ascends the white 
 road which climbs the mountain between the sombre 
 forests, and in the evening a wagoner's team de- 
 scends. Each season gives it new colors; the woods 
 which were pink and white last month are now 
 brilliant with verdure, and soon they will become as 
 red and yellow as if a fire had passed that way. 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COBNEMITS. 181 
 
 The dweller in the hut breathes the perfumes of his 
 fields ; he listens to their birds ; if this dweller be a 
 young girl, she gathers their flowers ; if a philoso- 
 pher, he takes long walks, with cane in hand ; if a 
 hunter, he goes out shooting the rabbits and the 
 hares. But the dweller in the roona A has only the 
 pleasure of dusting his fields and protecting them 
 from the outrages of the flies. The one has a living 
 bird, the other a stuffed bird. 
 
 "From all this I infer that one is better lodged in 
 a hut than in the room A. " 
 
 After this conclusion, Cornelius went to bed and 
 to sleep. 
 
 The next day Cornelius awoke with a feeling of 
 happiness. To be sure, he had in his pocket only a 
 well-worn twelve-sow piece; but he had an abun- 
 dant table, a blackboard, fortune, and glory in 
 prospect, and a woman who loved him. Here was 
 enough to make two men happy. For my part, if 
 this happiness had been divided into two shares, on 
 the one side Louise, and on the other all the rest, I 
 know very well which I would have chosen. 
 
 As soon as he had risen, he paced Mother Simone's 
 meadow to measure it, and perceived with satisfac- 
 tion that there would be plenty of room for his 
 cloth. This first duty performed, he went to pay a 
 
182 BELLE-PLANTE AND COBNBLIUS. 
 
 visit to his drying-oil. Belle-Plante saw him from 
 the back of his barn, where he was threshing. He 
 came up to him, and took him by the hand. 
 
 " You see," said he, " I bear you no ill will because 
 of the ridiculous scene which you made yesterday. 
 You have caused me to pass a sleepless night ; but 
 none the less I have watched over your oil as if it 
 were my own." 
 
 Cornelius chanced to look at Belle-Plante's shoes, 
 which were as greasy as if it were his intention to 
 eat them in a salad, and he smiled within himself. 
 He touched one of them with the end of a switch 
 which he had in his hand and lifted it to his lips. 
 
 "As if it were your own is well said," he ex- 
 claimed, "for your shoes are saturated with my 
 oil." 
 
 As Belle-Plante swore to the contrary, he con- 
 tinued : 
 
 "It is useless to deny it; chemistry is a sorcerer 
 which cannot be deceived. I recognize juy oil by 
 its alkaline and slightly empyreumatic flavor." 
 
 "Well, since you know it, I will not deny it; but 
 
 I have acted in your interest. I wanted to try your 
 
 f 
 
 oil, for that is like you savants; you take every- 
 thing on trust without previous examination. You 
 write on every page of your books that men are de- 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 183 
 
 ceivers, and you always act as if they were inca- 
 pable of deceiving. " 
 
 "I desire," said Cornelius. "To profit by your 
 advice. I might tell you that my oil is a corrosive 
 injurious to shoe-leather ; but you would try it in a 
 salad, you would try it in a frying-pan, you would 
 try it in your lamps, and, by dint of trying it to see 
 if I had not been deceived, you would not leave me 
 a drop. I prefer to have it carried to Mother 
 Simone's together with my cloth." 
 
 "What!" said Belle-Plante, "you distrust your 
 brother?" 
 
 " Yes, " said Cornelius. " To be frank, when a 
 brother is capable of closing his door against his 
 brother, he is capable of robbing him." 
 
 "But," said Belle-Plante, "you are a hundred 
 times more selfish than I, you who offer me this 
 insult on account of a drop of oil. Well, I will pay 
 you for your oil." 
 
 "No," said Cornelius, "I do not reproach you; 
 but, you see, I have only just enough, and when 
 this is gone, I shall have no means of buying 
 more." 
 
 Belle-Plante was silent for a time, and then said : 
 
 "Cornelius, will you breakfast with me?" 
 
 The savant stood struck with astonishment ; then 
 
184 BELLE-PLAKTE AND COBKELIUS. 
 
 he surveyed Belle-Plante with his scrutinizing look, 
 examining him as if he had been a geometrical 
 figure. 
 
 "Belle-Plante," said he, "you have need of me!" 
 "I admit it," said Belle-Plante. "I have need of 
 you, but it is not for that reason that I invite- you 
 to breakfast. " 
 
 "Well, speak; vrhat can I do for you?" 
 "We will talk of that at breakfast." 
 " But, " said Cornelius, " I do not wish to break- 
 fast with you." 
 
 "Well," answered Belle-Plante, frightened at the 
 consequences of his invitation, "perhaps you are 
 right. You Paris gentlemen are not accustomed to 
 the peasant's way of living, and perhaps I could 
 not offer you a breakfast worthy of you." 
 "Probably; but explain yourself." 
 "Well, it appears that you are paying attention 
 to Mademoiselle Louise." 
 
 "And it appears that you are spying her foot- 
 steps. Listen, Belle-Plante; I love you as well as 
 one ought to love a brother of your character ; but 
 mark this: if, when I am with Louise, I find you 
 in my path, I shall not ask myself whether your 
 name is Belle-Plante or Germanicus, and, though I 
 have a cane in my hand that cost three hundred 
 
BELLB-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 185 
 
 francs, I shall break it on your backbone, unless 
 your backbone breaks first." 
 
 "But," said Belle-Plante, "you doubtless do not 
 know that Mademoiselle Louise belongs to me ; I 
 am under contract to marry her, and we are going 
 to Clamecy to-day, her father and I, on this busi- 
 ness." 
 
 "And you doubtless do not know that Louise de- 
 tests you and loves me. " 
 
 " Yes, but I am loved by Father Desallemagnes, 
 and you are detested by him." 
 
 " Then it is Father Desallemagnes who is to be 
 married?" 
 
 " What you say is entirely out of place ; science 
 has spoiled you, Cornelius. Formerly you were 
 better than that." 
 
 " Yes, when you, by beating me, forced me to do 
 whatever you wanted me to do." 
 
 "At any rate, I consider you a bad brother, if 
 you persist in paying attention to raj fiancee." 
 
 "And you undoubtedly are a good brother, when 
 you close the door of your house against me as if I 
 were a beggar." 
 
 "Oh! that is a very different thing," said Belle- 
 Plante, "and I will show you why. It would have 
 cost me much money to lodge you, warm you, light 
 
186 BELLE-PLANTB AND COENELIUS. 
 
 you, and feed you. But what will it cost you to 
 renounce Mademoiselle Desallemagnes? Not a 
 sou." 
 
 "And if I were to fall sick from sorrow, perhaps 
 it would cost me more than a sou." 
 
 " Oh ! I undertake in that case to pay your doctor 
 and your apothecary, and, if you die, to bury you 
 at my expense." 
 
 "Many thanks; but I will not renounce Louise." 
 
 " Well, you will have to renounce her, whether 
 you want to or not. Father Desallemagnes will 
 soon be bound with me before a notary. Why 
 waste in cajoling Louise time that is precious to 
 humanity, and that you might employ so well in 
 useful discoveries like those which you have already 
 made?" 
 
 "Bah!" said Cornelius; "one must get some 
 pleasure out of life ; " and it is my opinion that the 
 time which is best employed is that which is wasted. " 
 
 "Well, then, go to the devil, egoist, cold-heart, 
 bad brother !" 
 
 "Adieu, Belle-Plante ; in calling you by your 
 name I give you a worse epithet than any of those." 
 
XIII. 
 
 Cornelius quietly resumed his way to his tavern; 
 he put his hand in his watch-pocket to see how 
 much time remained before the rendezvous ; but he 
 found his watch-pocket empty. He asked himself 
 what he had done with his watch, and he finally 
 remembered that he had pawned it. To give him- 
 self courage, he resolved to employ the leisure time 
 that still remained in eating a good breakfast ; for 
 Cornelius was not one of those thin and bony 
 savants after the style of Pascal, the great man 
 whose cook made him eat on Friday a cutlet for a 
 herring. Cornelius placed a high value on the en- 
 joyments of the brain; but the stomach, too, seemed 
 to him a very respectable organ. He laughed at 
 those philosophers who look upon the pleasures of 
 the belly as something base. God, he said, has put 
 in man's palate nervous tissues with which to enjoy 
 this great feast which the sun cooks for him. If 
 the master of a house had taken every pains to pre- 
 pare delicate dishes for you, you would wound his 
 
 187 
 
188 BELLE-PLANTE AND COBNELIUS. 
 
 pride if you touched them only with the tips of your 
 Hps. Now, you offend God's pride when you dis- 
 dain the excellent things that he has naade for you. 
 Such was Cornelius' philosophy — a philosophy of 
 infinitely greater value, surely, than his theories 
 about machines. 
 
 • Cornelius, then, while chewing over a problem in 
 mathematics, ate a six-egg omelet and three sHces 
 of excellent domestic ham, and drank a pint of 
 Dornecy wine. 
 
 M. Desallemagnes' house was opposite Mother 
 Simone's inn. Louise could see from her window 
 all that went on in the dining-room. It was half- 
 past ten, and she was watching Cornehus im- 
 patiently. At last the savant, having emptied his 
 last glass of wine, rose ; but in dreaming of Louise 
 he had forgotten Father Desallemagnes ; he drew a 
 big pencil from his pocket and began to scribble 
 equations and cabalistic algebraic signs on the white 
 wall of the dining-room. Louise stamped with 
 anger. Her father had already called for his white 
 shirt, and the loiterer's pencil was still going its 
 pace. She sent him a cherry-stone, which, launched 
 with a sure hand, like the dart of Hippolytus, hit 
 the savant squarely on the nose. 
 
 "That is singular," said Cornelius, scratching his 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 189 
 
 nose; "if 1 were outside, I should think that an 
 aerolite had fallen on me. " 
 And he resumed his equations. 
 
 HE BESUMBD HIS EQUATIONS. 
 
 Father Desallemagnes had already put on his 
 white cravat and bis knee-breeches. Louise, un- 
 
190 BELLE-PLAKTE AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 able to restrain herself longer, rushed into the 
 street, and, passing before Mother Simone, who was 
 spinning in her doorway, she said to her : 
 
 "Nurse, do me the favor to say to Monsieur 
 Cornelius on my behalf that he is an imbecile. " 
 
 "And why say that to this good young man? 
 This morning he gave me twelve sous for having 
 gone to the grocer's to buy him a pencil." 
 
 "Yes, and a fine use he is making of your pencil, 
 my poor nurse ! Go into your dining-room, and you 
 will see." 
 
 And she disappeared. 
 
 So Mother Simone went into her dining-room, for 
 the least wishes of Louise were to her sovereign 
 orders ; but, at sight of the horrible scrawls with 
 which Cornelius had soiled the virgin robe of her 
 dining-room, she forgot her message. 
 
 "What, Monsieur Cornelius, you, a man of 
 twenty-four years, make faces on the walls like a 
 child !" 
 
 "Faces! Be careful of your terms. Mother Si- 
 mone ; those are not faces ; those are equations of 
 the third degree." 
 
 And he continued to cipher. 
 
 "Monsieur Cornelius, must I tear this bit of 
 stained wood out of your hands?" 
 
BELLE-PLAHTB AND COENELIUS. 191 
 
 "Permit me, Mother Simone; I am finishing a 
 little calculation." 
 
 "Yes, a little calculation," said Mother Simone, 
 pitifully; "you have spoiled twelve yards of plaster 
 already ! At the rate at which you are going there 
 will not he a white spot left in the house a week 
 from now." 
 
 "'Tis true," said Cornelius, "I am wrong; I 
 should have reflected that I was soiling your wall. 
 You will ask Louise to have a blackhoard placed 
 here, with some chalk." 
 
 "By the way," said Mother Simone, striking her 
 forehead, "Mademoiselle Louise told me to tell you 
 that you are an imbecile." 
 
 "Who, I? Oh! it is true, I am an imbecile! 
 Louise is right. Quick, Mother Simone, my coat !" 
 Cornelius put on his coat, placed his napkin in his 
 pocket thinking that it was his handkerchief, and 
 fledj pursued by Mother Simone, who brushed his 
 back as he ran. 
 
 " Oh ! Monsieur Cornelius, your frill is falling off ! 
 Your shoe-buckle is unfastened!" cried Mother 
 Simone. 
 
 But the savant did not hear a word, and was 
 already in Father Desallemagnes' yard, where he 
 found Louise, who tried to sulk. 
 
193 BBLLB-PLANTE AKD COKNELIUS. 
 
 "Indeed, Monsieur Cornelius," said she, "you are 
 very amusing with your figures." 
 
 "'Tis true, Louise," said Cornelius, "I am tire- 
 some with my figures; but, just as there are plants 
 each drop of whose sap is brilliancy and perfume, 
 so there are others which bear only stiff and rugous 
 leaves. God, who made you to charm, made me to 
 calculate. Now, is it my fault that I calculate? 
 Can a nightingale that sings reproach the raven 
 that croaks? And can the butterfly that feeds upon 
 the pollen of the flowers call it a crime in the worm 
 to eat the damp earth of the plain? I have two 
 passions, one great and one small : calculation and 
 Louise. You, Louise, reign as a sovereign over my 
 soul ; you love everything that feels and palpitates 
 within me ; then at least leave some place in my 
 life for my poor figures. Does the master who 
 reigns in a beautiful palace envy the spider the 
 corner of the attic where it spins its web? With 
 you I could still calculate, for the bird which has its 
 nest in the oasis sometimes stops in the desert; but 
 without you, Louise, I could calculate no longer; 
 all within me that is intelligent would be crushed, 
 and thereafter I could only weep. Oh ! I love you ! 
 I love you!" 
 
 " Cornelius, " cried Louise, "when the raven is 
 
BBLLB-PLAWTE AND COElirBLIUS. 19S 
 
 awaited by its mate it does not amuse itself in 
 croaking stupidly upon a tree. I have- succeeded in 
 preventing my father from going to Clamecy ; but 
 another time, probably, I should be less fortunate. " 
 
 " And how did you manage, Louise, my treasure 
 of love and tact, to prevent your father from going 
 to Olamecy?" 
 
 Just then Belle -Plante entered, out of breath, his 
 forehead covered with sweat. 
 
 "Goodness! Monsieur Belle-Plante, " said Louise, 
 "how hot you are! Will you take some refresh- 
 ment?" 
 
 " Many thanks, mademoiselle. Is your father not 
 at home?" 
 
 "No, indeed, Monsieur Belle-Plante; he waited a 
 long time for you, but, as you did not come, he went 
 to his Chevroches fields to visit his mowers. " 
 
 " That cursed Panuche is to blame for this. Let 
 the scamp come at Easter to get his rouloires! He 
 came to tell me this morning that one of my teams 
 was sinking in the mud in the valley of Armes, and 
 that one of my oxen had broken a horn. I hurried 
 to the spot, thinking to return in time ; and, when 
 I got there, there was no more sign of a team stuck 
 in the mud, or of an ox with a broken horn, than 
 there is in your room." 
 
 13 
 
194 BELLB-PLANTB AND COnNELITJS. 
 
 "Why, that is very bad," said Cornelius, seri- 
 ously, "on the part of a churchman. You should 
 complain of him to his priest." 
 
 "Possibly Panuche thought," said Louise, "that 
 to-day was the first of April." 
 
 "I will walk a little way in the direction of Chev- 
 roches," said Belle-Plante ; "if I meet your father, 
 we shall still have time to go to Clamecy to settle 
 our business." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Louise; "but make haste, 
 for it is his intention to go from Chevroches to his 
 vineyard to see his wine-growers. " 
 
 When Belle-Plante was gone, Cornelius fell into 
 a deep meditation. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Monsieur Cor- 
 nelius?" said Louise. 
 
 " I am trying to explain to myself in what inter- 
 est Panuche, who is not a joker, could have told 
 this lie to Belle-Plante." 
 
 "And you do not guess?" 
 
 "Not the least in the world, Louise." 
 
 " Well, it was I who determined Panuche to play 
 this trick on Belle-Plante." 
 
 "And how did you manage it, Louise?" 
 
 "Why, I gave him the finest turkey in our flock; 
 a turkey as fat and stupid as Panuche himself." 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AKD CORNELIUS. 195 
 
 "And suppose your father should notice its 
 absence?" 
 
 "Jeanne will say that the fox ate it." 
 
 "Not a bad scheme!" said Cornelius. 
 
 "Well," said Louise, " good-by until to-morrow, 
 and I will caution Mother Simone to watch you in 
 respect to the equations as soon as you are up. But, 
 for greater safety, I must disarm you. Give me 
 your pencil, Monsieur Cornelius." 
 
 Cornelius gave up his pencil with docility, and 
 went to dream in the fields ; for M. Desallemagnes 
 might return any minute. 
 
XIV. 
 
 The next day, at eight o'clock, Cornelius left his 
 inn ; but this time he was thoroughly brushed and 
 his shoes were irreproachable, for Mother Simone 
 had put him through an inspection as if he were a 
 soldier, in obedience to the orders of Louise, who 
 did not wish him to appear in public with an incor- 
 rect exterior. Father Desallemagnes was drawing 
 water from his weU, like a patriarch, to water his 
 mares. Now this well worked with a wheel. The 
 unlucky wheel made the mistake — quite involim- 
 tarily, doubtless — of shocking our learned friend. 
 He approached M. Desallemagnes, hat in hand, 
 and thus began his exordium : 
 
 "Monsieur Desallemagnes, before interviewing 
 
 you on more important subjects, I must teU you that 
 
 you use for your well a very defective method of 
 
 lifting. The windlass dates back to the infancy of 
 
 mechanics. It was with a windlass that Jacob 
 
 watered his Uncle Laban's asses, and that Eebecca 
 
 drew water to cook her vegetables. " 
 
 196 
 
BELLB-PLANTi; AND COENELIUS. 
 
 197 
 
 Father Desallemagnes looked at Cornelius in 
 amazement, and took him for a madman. 
 
 " The method of the pulley is infinitely superior 
 
 MME. SIMOKE HAD PUT HIM THBOUGH AN INSPECTION. 
 
 to that of the windlass, " continued Cornelius; "it 
 
 offers this advantage " 
 
 Louise entered the yard under pretext of throw- 
 ing grain to her pigeons, and, seeing that Cornelius 
 
198 BELLB-PLANTB AND COEKELIUS. 
 
 was about to engage in a discussion the end of 
 which could not be foreseen, she thought fit to 
 intervene. 
 
 "My father," she interrupted, "Monsieur Corne- 
 Uus comes to ask my hand in marriage." 
 
 "Ah!" said Father Desallemagnes, "so this is 
 Cornelius, brother of BeUe-Plante, a propos of 
 whom they gossip about in the village?" 
 
 "The same, Monsieur Desallemagnes," said Cor- 
 nelius. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur CorneUus, my daughter is too 
 young ; I do not wish her to marry now. " 
 
 "No, my father," said Louise, "I am not too 
 young to marry, and I even think that it is high 
 time for me to marry." 
 
 " But Louise is rich, Monsieur Cornelius, and you 
 have nothing left." 
 
 "What is it to me that Louise is rich? Is that a 
 reason for preventing me from marrying her? 
 When a watch keeps good time, should one throw it 
 into the street because it is gold?" 
 
 Father Desallemagnes opened his eyes wide with 
 stupefaction. 
 
 "Well," said he to Louise, " your Cornelius does 
 not seem to shine in intelligence. " 
 
 "Oh! my father," answered Louise, "saving the 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AlfD COKNEUUS. 199 
 
 respect that I owe you, he has much more wit than 
 the entire vestry, yourself excepted and the priest 
 included. Come now, Monsieur Cornelius, show a 
 Uttle wit." 
 
 "You did not clearly imderstand what I said, my 
 lad, " continued Father Desallemagnes ; " it is Louise 
 who does not wish to marry you, because she is rich 
 and you are poor. Now do you understand?" 
 
 "Who told you so, my father?" answered Louise; 
 " on the contrary I wish to marry Monsieur Corne- 
 lius. He does not understand why a miserable 
 difference in wealth should form an obstacle to a 
 young man and a young girl who love each other, 
 because he has a noble heart. If Cornelius had the 
 globe in his hand, like Charlemagne, he would give 
 it to me ; I have only two or three farms. How can 
 you think that I would not give them to him?" 
 
 " That's it, " said Cornelius. " In your turn, do you 
 understand now, Monsieur Desallemagnes?" 
 
 " I am too old for that ; but the fact is that your 
 way of looking at things is not mine. I will not 
 give my daughter to a man who has nothing." 
 
 "Well, let us come to an understanding," said 
 Cornelius. "It seems that you desire a son-in-law 
 who is rich. Well, in three months I shall be not 
 only the richest man in France, but in all Europe. 
 
200 BELLE-PLANTE AKD COBNELiUS. 
 
 I shall have milUons at my disposition. I shall be 
 able, if I like, to equip fleets, to pay an army, and 
 I will put a silver pulley in your well. You look at 
 me as if you took me for a madman. Understand, 
 Monsieur Desallemagnes, that I have completed 
 Montgolfier's discovery. He made only a manikin ; 
 I have taken the manikin and given it life. See ! 
 here is the plan of my balloon. Examine it and 
 answer me." 
 
 "You do not know, JMonsieur Cornehus, that my 
 father knows no plan save that of his lands." 
 
 "So much the better!" said Cornelius, "thatwiU 
 procure me the pleasure of explaining my baUoon to 
 him. See, Monsieur Desallemagnes, large A is my 
 reservoir of hydrogen, small A is my rudder ; large B 
 and small b are my wheels. I could demonstrate to 
 you that this motor has a thirty -horse power; but 
 that would lead us into calculations which would be 
 out of place in a suit for marriage. You under- 
 stand that with such force one can reasonably hope 
 to overcome the most impetuous currents of air; 
 and besides, as I have written to Louise, I hope to 
 find in the upper regions of the atmosphere a per- 
 fectly calm air." 
 
 "Do you understand anything of that, Louise?" 
 
 "No, my father." 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND CORlirBLIUS. 201 
 
 "Then you do not believe in his balloon?" 
 
 "I believe in it as I believe in God — without 
 understanding it.". 
 
 ,"The devil! that would be better than Belle- 
 Plante's ploughs, all the same ! But you see I am 
 under contract with him ; he has let me have half 
 an interest in his bargain." 
 
 " Well, my father, abandon your contract. Is it 
 not time for you to rest?" 
 
 "But, you see, there has already been a be- 
 ginning of the execution. And that is not all ; the 
 priest has threatened to take away my office of 
 church-warden if I allow you to marry Monsieur 
 Cornelius." 
 
 "Is that all?" said Cornelius. "I will have you 
 appointed church-warden at Saint-Germain-l'Auxer- 
 rois, or in any other parish of the capital that you 
 may choose. When my balloon is made, I shall be 
 as powerful in France as the prime minister." 
 
 " That is very good, but I do not wish to leave 
 Armes to be church-warden in Paris." 
 
 "Well, you shall be honorary church-warden," 
 said Louise. " My father can live in Armes and be 
 church-warden at Paris; can he not, Cornelius?" 
 
 "Undoubtedly," said Cornelius. 
 
 "Well, when Monsieur Cornelius has finished his 
 
202 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKKELIUS. 
 
 balloon, we will see; until then, I can promise 
 nothing." 
 
 "At least, you will dismiss* Monsieur Belle. 
 Plante?" 
 
 "Oh! dismiss him yourself; I am going off." 
 
 Just then Belle-Plante came in, all covered with 
 mud. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur Desallemagnes, are you ready?" 
 
 "My father charges me," said Louise, "to inform 
 you that he does not wish to sign the forfeiture 
 deed." 
 
 "Why so?" said Belle-Plante. 
 
 " Because I do not wish to marry you. " 
 
 " I am not in negotiation with you, mademoiselle ; 
 this does not concern you. Your father has taken 
 an obligation toward me ; he is too honest a man to 
 break his word." 
 
 "His engagement is null," said Cornehus; "he 
 had not the right to stipulate for his daughter." 
 
 "Monsieur Desallemagnes needs no prompting 
 from you, learned Cornehus ; I wish him to explain 
 himself upon this point." 
 
 "Well, no," said M. Desallemagnes, "I will not 
 sigh the forfeiture needed." 
 
 And off he went. 
 
 "AH right, old knave!" said Belle-Plante; "I 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 203 
 
 have witnesses to our bargain ; you shall hear from 
 me to-morrow." / 
 
 " That's right !"• said Cornelius ; " summon Mon- 
 sieur Desallemagnes to deliver his daughter to you. 
 Send her love-lettetrs by a sheriff's officer, and get 
 the courts to award you a wife ; that is a method 
 belonging only to you." 
 
XV. 
 
 The next day Cornelius again began work upon 
 his balloon with heroic ardor. He led the life of a 
 day-laborer, a life without leisure and full of sweat. 
 The birds were not awake in the willows before he 
 was occupied in coating his cloth with his hands 
 dipped in oil, and when the sun had gone down he 
 was still at work. He had accepted with resigna- 
 tion the role of a grease-brush, pending the time 
 when he should be a great man. 
 
 At first, when any of the village idlers surprised 
 him in this not very exalted occupation, he felt a 
 sort of shame. But soon he became resigned. " All 
 that shines," he said, "all that is radiant, aU that 
 is great here on earth, has an humble origin. It 
 seems that God intended brilliancy to be purchased 
 by obscurity, beauty by ugliness, strength by weak- 
 ness. Eome was once only a hovel ; the lightning 
 rose to the skies from the mud of the earth ; the 
 tulip was once but an ugly bulb rotting in a bed of 
 muck, not good even to make soup of. Why should 
 
 it be otherwise with an inventor? Undoubtedly the 
 
 304 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 205 
 
 powdered savants of our academies would laugh at 
 me if they saw me in this situation. They would 
 say: 'Cornelius is devoting himself to a ridiculous 
 task!' But where, then, would be the ridicule if a 
 great captain should forge his own sword? Why 
 are there certain tasks that belong to the people and 
 others that belong to the rich? This handsome 
 young man who holds a dog in leash would rather 
 be killed than lead a donkey by the bridle ; another 
 who goes to his bookseller to get books would die 
 of hunger rather than go to the butcher's to get 
 meat ; another who would not cross the street with 
 his trunk upon his shoulders, very willingly carries 
 a flower-pot under his arms ; a monsieur who is not 
 afraid to be seen shaving himself would blush to 
 his temples if he were seen blacking his boots. 
 What, then, is the origin of these differences be- 
 tween acts that are identical, and why should a sen- 
 sible man comply with these ridiculous distinctions?" 
 And thereupon Cornehus began to brush his cloth 
 with new ardor. 
 
XVI. 
 
 Wherever there is a young girl in an attic there 
 is also a cage placed in the rays of the sun, in which 
 a hird, who represents spring, sings and hops about 
 while its mistress plies her needle. But Cornelius 
 had a bird of a very different character to amuse 
 him in the lonely hours of his labor, and I who 
 speak to you would like to work from morning till 
 night on the sole condition of being entertained like 
 Cornelius. 
 
 Mother Simone's meadow was a pretty meadow, 
 in which one continually heard the tinkling of the 
 bell fastened to the neck of Blanchette, Mother 
 Simone's cow. At first this served to entertain 
 Cornelius. But the meadow was behind the inn, 
 serving as its garden, and was surrounded by a row 
 of willows impenetrable by the most indiscreet eye. 
 So, as soon as Louise had a moment to herself, she 
 flew to Cornelius ; she came to play with him, to 
 babble with the birds in the willows, and to run over 
 his half dried cloth. Often she brought her work. 
 Cornelius made a shelter for her with a piece of 
 
 206 
 
BELLE-tLANTE AND COKKELIUS. 209 
 
 cloth stretched from one willow to another, and a 
 seat with a sheaf of grass, over which he spread his 
 coat. Louise worked by his side, now talking, 
 laughing, teasing him in a thousand charming 
 ways, or discussing physics with him when this tor- 
 mented him too much ; now spending entire quar- 
 ter-hours looking at him. Sometimes Mother Si- 
 mone served Cornelius' breakfast under the willows, 
 and the two lovers ate together. This meant a half 
 day lost for the balloon; for after breakfast they 
 had to take a walk on the banks of the Yonne; 
 when Cornelius complained that she disturbed him, 
 she answered that there would always be time 
 enough to be a great man, and the philosopher in- 
 ternally shared this opinion. 
 
 At night Cornelius went to get Louise at her 
 father's, when supper was over, and they went to 
 walk in the moonlight in the suburbs of the village. 
 No one had anything to say against this ; for it is 
 allowable in a village for a young girl to go wher- 
 ever she likes with a young man who is openly 
 courting her. 
 
 So one day Cornelius and Louise were walking on 
 the banks of the Yonne ; they met a peasant who 
 was carrying a large pike hanging by the gills to a 
 stick. 
 
 14 
 
aiO BELLE-PLANTE ANB COENELIUS. 
 
 "Let us buy this pike," said Louise to Cornelius; 
 "we will tell my father that we caught it." 
 
 " A good idea !" said Cornelius ; " we wiU say that 
 we caught it at the fountain; that wiU be more 
 extraordinary stiU." 
 
 "My good man," said Louise, "what will you 
 take for your pike?" 
 
 "Alas! mademoiselle," said the fisherman, "my 
 pike is not for sale ; it is to be given away ; I am 
 carrying it to Monsieur BeUe-Plante." 
 
 " To give to a person who is richer than one's self 
 is the most absurd of absurdities." 
 
 "It is no absurdity on my part," said the fisher- 
 man. "Monsieur Belle-Plante lent me eighty 
 francs, and he stipulated that he should have a pike 
 in addition to the interest." 
 
 "I will bet," said Louise, "that he exacts from 
 you' at least twenty francs interest for the eighty 
 francs that he lent you." 
 
 "Pardon me, mademoiselle. Monsieur Belle-Plante 
 is a worthy man ; he takes from me only fifteen 
 francs." 
 
 "The Jew!" shouted Cornelius; "fifteen francs 
 and a pike for interest on eighty francs ! Louise, 
 give this man six francs ; we buy his pike. " 
 
 "You could not have it for twelve francs, my 
 
BELLE-PLAJSTTE AJsTD COKNELItJS. 211 
 
 dear monsieur ! A bargain is a bargain, and, if I 
 had not caught this pike, I would have bought one 
 at the fish market. " 
 
 "Well, I tell you," said* Cornelius, taking his 
 pike from his hands, "that I will buy your fish." 
 
 "But once more I say, monsieur, that cannot be!" 
 
 "And I teU you that it can be, and that further- 
 more it is! Louise, give this man six francs." 
 
 "But, my good friend," said Louise. 
 
 " There are no buts, dear Louise ; I will not per- 
 mit the son of my father to be guilty of such base- 
 ness !. Of what use is it for me to toil to make our 
 name famous, if he toils on his side to cover it with 
 mud?" 
 
 "But," said the fisherman, "you will cause your 
 brother to make me pay for this." 
 
 "I take the responsibility," said Cornelius. "Go 
 find Belle-Plante, and teU him that I took your 
 pike, and that he can come and claim it of me at 
 Mother Simone's. Give yourself no anxiety about 
 the matter." 
 
 "Well, since you absolutely wish it, "said the fish- 
 erman; "but I must return you three francs." 
 
 "No," said Cornelius, "your pike is worth six 
 francs, and we will not buy it for a sou less. Isn't 
 that so, Louise?" 
 
213 BELLB-PLANTE AKD COftNELIUS'. 
 
 "Yes, my friend," answered Louise. 
 
 And they returned to the village with the fisher- 
 man. 
 
 The next day, sure enough, Belle-Plante came to 
 find Cornelius. 
 
 "Well, "said the latter, as he saw him, "it seems 
 that the peasant did my errand. Let us see what 
 the rascal is going to say. " 
 
 "So," said Belle-Plante, "it seems, savant, that 
 yesterday you seized hy main force a pike belong- 
 ing to me." 
 
 " Belonging to you?" said Cornelius, knitting his 
 dark brow, like Jupiter when he wishes to make the 
 heavens tremble. 
 
 "Yes, belonging to me; you understand, savant; 
 and you are going to restore it to me directly, or 
 else I am going to complain to the sheriff." 
 
 "And I, too, skinflint, might complain to the 
 sheriff. Do you not know, then, that usury is a 
 crime in the eyes of the law?" 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Belle-Plante. 
 
 "Yes, I think so; and, if I were a judge, I would 
 have no more mercy upon usurers than upon high- 
 way robbers. Usury in my eyes is the most infa- 
 mous and cowardly of all robberies. When a man 
 demands of you at the edge of a forest your money 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND COKKELIUS. 213 
 
 or your life, you can answer him by the thrust of a 
 dagger or escape by flight ; when a robber forces 
 open your desk, you can secure your money from 
 his attempts by a stronger lock ; when a rascal of 
 another sort sends you into bankruptcy, you know 
 that you might have secured yourself against his 
 dishonesty and placed your credit beyond the reach 
 of accident. But how are you to defend yourself 
 against the usurer? He strangles you with his iron 
 purse-strings." 
 
 " That's all very fine, " said Belle-Plante ; " but tell 
 me, savant, what is interest but rent? Now, if I 
 buy a house for three hundred francs and rent it for 
 six hundred francs, no one will have anything to 
 say against it ; on the contrary, I shall be counted a 
 clever man. Why, then, should I be condemned 
 for renting a sum of eighty francs for fifteen francs 
 and a pike? And the merchant who makes a profit 
 of fifty per cent, on his merchandise, does he not do 
 worse than I? If it is wrong in him to make a 
 profit on his money, why does not the law poke its 
 nose behind his counter? What I do everybody 
 does without its appearance in society. I have a 
 cancer which will kill me, and of which only a cer- 
 tain doctor can cure me ; if I wish to save my life, 
 I must apply to him; nevertheless he charges me- 
 
214 BELLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 three thousand francs for five or six strokes of his 
 lancet. This great lawyer, this king of phrase, this 
 model of honesty to whom I entrust the defence of 
 my fortune and my honor because in him alone I 
 have confidence, will take three or four thousand 
 francs from me for talking an hour or two. This 
 priest of whom I ask the sacrament of marriage will 
 make me pay seven hundred francs for a Papal 
 dispensation, the whole of which can be written upon 
 a half-sheet of paper. " 
 
 "But this pike, wretch! this pike which you ex- 
 act in addition to an exorbitant interest, can you 
 justify this extortion also?" 
 
 "Why, that is the banker's discoimt! A great 
 fool I should be if I were to abstain from what they 
 all do. So I beg you to believe that I never fail in 
 it. When I lend to a hunter, he owes me three or 
 four hares, according to the sum ; if to a cobbler, I 
 make him give me a pair of shoes, and good ones 
 too ; if I were to lend to an old woman who had 
 nothing but a hen on its perch, I would exact a 
 dozen eggs." 
 
 "Wretch!" cried Cornehus, "and you are my 
 brother! Here, IwiU give you an idea of the situa- 
 tion of an unfortunate man who under the pressure 
 of necessity applies to the usurer. " 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 215 
 
 He had in his hand his brush filled with drying- 
 oil, and he passed it two or three times over Belle- 
 Plante's face. 
 
 "Oh, the rascal!" shouted Belle-Plan te, scarcely 
 able to unglue his lips; "help. Mother Simone! 
 help, monsieur the mayor! he has poisoned me, 
 stifled me, covered me with grease ; he has shortened 
 my life by more than ten years ! Mercy ! I beUeve 
 some of it went down my shirt-collar!" 
 
 Louise was then at Mother Simone's. On hearing 
 Belle-Plante's cries, she came running out, think- 
 ing that the two brothers were killing one another. 
 But at sight of Belle-Plante, who looked as if he 
 had just come out of a frying-pan, she burst into a 
 mad fit of laughter. This hilarity added to Belle- 
 Plante's rage. 
 
 "All right!" he shouted, "rest easy, Cornelius; 
 to-morrow, sorcerer, you shall hear from me. The 
 sheriff will deal with you, scoundrel ! We shall see 
 whether you have a right to whitewash a man as if 
 he were a barn-door, and also to spoil his shirt !" 
 
 "Sit down," said Cornelius, "and listen. To re- 
 move this oil a chemical preparation is necessary 
 which no one knows in Armes or in Clamecy. I 
 alone can rid you of this coating, and I will leave it 
 on your face until you have restored to the man 
 
216 BELLE-PLANTB AND COKNBLIUS. 
 
 with the pike everything that you have taken from 
 him- over and above legal interest. Now, do as you 
 choose ; I am in the position of the usurer, and you 
 in that of the borrower. I beg you to observe, 
 moreover, that you are not obliged to accept the 
 conditions which I impose upon you." 
 
 " All right, aU right, Cornelius ! If you get out of 
 this with six months in prison, you wiU be very 
 lucky. I must make you rot in prison for this, if it 
 costs me a farm !" 
 
 "But, Monsieur BeUe-Plante," said Louise, be- 
 tween two shouts of laughter, "you are too ugly to 
 remain thus ; you look like an ahnond-cake ! If you 
 persist in not accepting the offer, you have but one 
 course to take — to have yourself tinned." 
 
 " It is very becoming in you to make sport of me, 
 perronnelle!" 
 
 "What did he say?" asked Cornelius. 
 
 "He said mademoiselle," answered Louise. 
 
 "No," shouted BeUe-Plante, ia exasperation, "I 
 said perronnelle; yes, perronnelle, do you hear, 
 Cornelius? And I will tell the whole village that 
 she is your mistress." 
 
 This was said in Mother Simone's kitchen. Cor- 
 nelius, furious, looked everywhere for some blunt 
 Instrument with which to show BeUe-Plante his 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 217 
 
 indignation. He perceived the pike of the night 
 before on the kitchen table; seizing it with both 
 hands by the gills, he brought it down so furiously 
 upon Belle-Plante 's shoulders that it sent him ten 
 steps out into the street. 
 
 "There!" said he, "carry that to your cook! it is 
 the pike." 
 
XVII. 
 
 On reaching home Belle-Plante tried to rid him- 
 self of his coating; hut Cornelius had told the 
 truth: the drying-oil was fastened upon his face 
 like a new skin. The clear water which he used in 
 floods served only to render his countenance more 
 shiny and copper-colored. All his servants had fled, 
 one to the right, another to the left, that they 
 might laugh unobserved. Old Gothon, whose age 
 and wrinkles made it necessary for her to be seri- 
 ous, alone remained beside him, lavishing upon him 
 her cares. At first she tried soap, but soap had no 
 effect upon the diabolical coating. 
 
 "God forgive me!" said she, "I believe, master, 
 that we shall have to put you in lye ; soap has no 
 more effect upon you than if I were to rub a pump- 
 kin to whiten it." 
 
 "Then," said Belle-Plante, "it is useless to waste 
 any more of it. " 
 
 "Suppose, then, I wash you with holy water, 
 master?" 
 
 " Crazy old woman, when your kettles are rusty, 
 
 218 
 
BELLE- PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 219 
 
 do you wash them with holy water? When your 
 frying-pan is oxidized, I have noticed that you use 
 
 ON REACHING HOME BELLE-PLANTB TRIED TO RID HIMSELF OF HIS 
 COATING. 
 
 ashes; do the same with me, and don't be afraid to 
 
 rub." 
 
 "But, master, I shall take your skin off." 
 
 " Go ahead, nevertheless, Gothon ; that is better 
 
 than paying the money back." 
 
320 BELLB-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 And Mother Gothon went to work. 
 
 But Cornelius and Louise had slipped into the 
 yard to enjoy Belle-Plante's pitiful appearance. 
 Cornelius could not resist the desire to correct the 
 chemical error which the servant was committing ; 
 so he entered the kitchen. 
 
 "I beg you to observe, Madame Gothon, "said he, 
 " that the action of soap is due only to the potash 
 which it contains; now, potash is derived from 
 ashes, and it is to the potash alone that the ashes 
 owe their detersive power. So it is just the same 
 as if you were to still rub with soap. " 
 
 "My gun!" shouted Belle-Plante; "bring me my 
 gun, that I may kill him !" 
 
 "You would be very imprudent to do that," said 
 Cornelius, coldly; "if I were dead, you would have 
 to remain all your life the color of a warming-pan. 
 Kill me, if you like." 
 
 "Well, at least rid me of your diabohcal oil, and 
 I will say nothing to the sheriff." 
 
 "Eestore," said Cornelius; "otherwise, not." 
 
 And he went away tranquilly, his hands in his 
 pockets, to rejoin Louise. 
 
 "I am going to stew Belle-Plante's pike," said 
 Cornelius to Louise, " and, if you like, we will dine 
 under the willows. " 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AKD CORNELIUS. 221 
 
 "Very willingly," said Louise; "my father is at 
 Clamecy, and my entire day is at our disposal. I 
 am going to tell Jeanne to make a cake for us." 
 
 " Oh !" said Cornelius, rubbing his hands, " a pike, 
 a cake, and Louise at breakfast! A great lord 
 might well say of me that I am a lucky fellow ! As 
 if happiness were made only for gentlemen !" 
 
 "God rewards you," said Louise, "for the good 
 deed that you have done. " 
 
 "Thank you, "said Cornelius; "but you did more 
 than half of this good deed." 
 
 While they were under the willows. Mother 
 Simone presented herself, followed by an old man, 
 whose face wore the stamp of honesty. 
 
 "Here, Monsieur Cornelius," said she; "Father 
 Navette would like to speak to you." 
 
 "Well, let him speak," said Cornelius; "come, 
 my good man, what have you to say to us? And 
 first of all drink a glass of this wine. Mother 
 Simone, a glass for Monsieur Navette." 
 
 Mother Simone, delighted with the success of her 
 protegS, ran to get a glass. 
 
 "Monsieur Sorcerer," said Father Navette. 
 
 "What do you mean. Father Navette?" said 
 Louise, "with your Monsieur Sorcerer?" 
 
 "Pardon me, mademoiselle, perhaps I have ill 
 
222 BELLE-PLAKTE AND COENBLIUS. 
 
 spoken ; but, as monsieur bewitched Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante on account of his usury, I would Uke him 
 to do me the same service that he has done to the 
 fisherman Jacob." 
 
 " H'm !" said Cornelius, assuming the gravity of 
 a king giving audience ; " I listen. " 
 
 " The case is this, Monsieur Savant. I am Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante's weaver, and he owes me one 
 hundred and ninety francs for weaving cloth." 
 
 "What!" said Cornelius, " Belle-Plante owes you 
 one hundred and ninety francs for weaving cloth? 
 That is impossible. I know from good authority 
 that he changes his clothes only every four months. " 
 
 "You must know," said Louise, "that Belle- 
 Plante manufactures every year linen, serge, and 
 striped cotton. He supplies all his servants with 
 garments, and keeps back the price thereof out of 
 their wages. He finds that his hemp and his wool 
 bring him more in this way than if he were to sell 
 them at the fair." 
 
 "Belle-Plante," said Cornelius, "is no ordinary 
 miser : he will advance the science ; really there is 
 imagination in his avarice. But go on, Father 
 Navette; I say this, not for you, but for myself." 
 
 "For two years," said Father Navette, "he has 
 owed me this sum. It was labor lost to ask him for 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNHLIUS. 323 
 
 the money : he had always just made a payment ; 
 he put me off from St. Anthony's to St. John's, 
 from St. John's to St. Martin's, from St. Martin's 
 to Christmas; in short, he dragged me from one 
 end of the calendar to the other. As luck would 
 have it, we lately lost our cow, and, not having the 
 money to buy another, I went to Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante, and I said to him : 
 
 '"This time. Monsieur Belle-Plante, I must ab- 
 solutely have my money. ' 
 
 " 'My dear Father Navette, ' he answered, 'though 
 you were to hang me as high as St. Martin's tower 
 to. make me find a sou, I could not find it. ' 
 
 " 'I won't hang you as high as St. Martin's tower, ' 
 I answered, 'especially as the bell-ringer would re- 
 fuse me the keys ; but I am going to bring suit 
 against you. ' 
 
 "'If you like. Father Navette,' he answered, 'I 
 will give you a six months note, and you can get it 
 discounted. ' 
 
 "A bit of paper instead of money was scarcely 
 what I wanted ; but hunger drives the wolf outside 
 the woods ; I was obliged to take his paper. As I 
 was in the yard, he called me back. 
 
 '"By the way. Father Navette,' said he, 'an idea 
 occurs to me ; since it is your intention to get your 
 
334 BELL'E-PLANTE AKD COKNELIUS. 
 
 note discounted, you may as well do it here as any- 
 where ; that will save you a trip to the city. ' 
 
 "'But,' I said to him, 'your told me just now that 
 one might hang you as high as St. Martin's tower 
 to make you find a sou. ' 
 
 "'It is money that is not mine,' he answered; 
 'but, as you are a worthy man, to oblige you I will 
 take it upon myself to dispose of it. ' 
 
 " 'Indeed, it is because I am a worthy man that 
 you wish to rob me !' 
 
 '"Not at all!" said he; 'will you take, in ex- 
 change for your note, one hundred and sixty francs 
 in beautiful new coin?' 
 
 " I struggled like a devil in a holy- water basin, 
 but in the end had to comply with his wishes." 
 
 " Belle-Plante is a wretch," said Louise; "but 
 what can Monsieur Cornelius do about it?" 
 
 "Pardon me, Louise, pardon me, "said Cornelius; 
 " I can do something about it, and even a great deal. 
 If Belle-Plante does not restore to Father Navette 
 the thirty francs he has cheated him out of, I under- 
 take to return them to him. " 
 
 "When your balloon is finished. Monsieur Cor- 
 nelius?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Cornelius, "that goes without 
 saying, Louise. Now, Monsieur Navette, do not 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 235 
 
 leave the premises ; and, when I want you, I will 
 send for you." 
 
 As he said this, Mother Simone came to ask if 
 she should show M. Belle-Plante in. 
 
 "Of course. Mother Simone ; bid him enter, and 
 bring him in if he will not walk. You cannot 
 serve us a better dessert. This happens most op- 
 portunely for you. Father Navette ; go hide behind 
 that willow yonder, and, when I call you, come 
 out." 
 
 " So here you are !" said Cornelius. 
 
 "Yes," said Belle-Plante. "Have ycu at last 
 decided to. remove this frightful mask?" 
 
 " That would be a pity, " said Cornelius. " It pro- 
 tects you from the bites of insects and from the 
 harmful effects of dampness. " 
 
 " Take it off, Cornelius, and I will restore three 
 francs to the fisherman." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Will you for six?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "For ten?" 
 
 " 'Tis useless to haggle," said Cornelius; "fifteen 
 francs, take it or leave it. You know that I repre- 
 sent the usurer and you the borrower. Now, try to 
 relieve yourself from my conditions. " 
 
 15 
 
236 BBtLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 
 
 " Well, I will restore the fifteen francs ; but put 
 me back in my original condition." 
 
 "First the fifteen francs. You know that one 
 should not let go of the cow before the cowherd has 
 blown his horn. That is a lesson which cost me 
 three sous, and I remember it." 
 
 Belle-Plante handed the fifteen francs to Cornelius 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "Now," said he, "I hope that you are going to 
 take your oil off my face. What are you waiting 
 for?" 
 
 "One moment," said Cornelius. "The devil! 
 what a hurry you are in ! We still have a little 
 account to settle. Father Navetfce, come here." 
 
 Father Navette came out from- his hiding-place 
 and stood opposite Cornelius. 
 
 "Do you know this man?" said Cornelius to 
 Belle-Plante. 
 
 " Undoubtedly I know him ; he is the king of men 
 and the emperor of weavers. But what has that to 
 do with my face?" 
 
 "You shall know. Speak, Father Navette. 
 Have you nothing to claim of the accused?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur Savant; if it is Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante whom you call the accused, I have to claim 
 thirty francs of him, which he cut off my bill 
 yesterday." 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELITTS. ^27 
 
 "That was for discount, you stupid old man! 
 How is it that at your age you do not understand 
 discount? Cornelius understands it well ; he knows 
 very well that without discount no business could 
 be done. Sometimes an individual might have a 
 hundred thousand francs as security in his portfolio, 
 and yet in the absence of discount could not get 
 money enough to buy a loaf of bread." 
 
 "So," said Cornelius, "under pretext of discount 
 you have unjustly held back from this man thirty 
 francs on a bill that you had owed him for two 
 years?" 
 
 "Well," said Belle-Plante, "he consented! Father 
 Navette is not a child, Cornelius. " 
 
 " Well, I am going to teach you the value of the 
 word consent. You, in your turn, shall consent to 
 restore him his thirty francs. Otherwise you shall 
 remain under your coating forever." 
 
 "Oh, Cornelius, you are joking! It is not possi- 
 ble that you demand this of me?" 
 
 "Eemember that I am the usurer and you the 
 borrower. You are free, as was Father Navette, 
 not to consent." 
 
 " Oh, this is the way you keep your word ! I did 
 not think that you had fallen as low as that, Cor- 
 nelius. Well, then, since you will not wash my 
 
238 EELLE-PLANTE and CORi^-ELlUS. 
 
 face, return to me the fifteen francs which you have 
 just extorted for your fisherman." 
 
 "No," said Cornelius, "that is money which you 
 restored. It does not belong to me, it belongs to 
 the fisherman." 
 
 "And you think that it is very delicate, very 
 loyal, that it is the act of an honest man, and 
 especially of a brother, to abuse the position in 
 which I find myself in order to ruin me. " 
 
 "What do you expect? I am the usurer, and 
 you the borrower." 
 
 " Say, rather, that you are the robber and I the 
 robbed." 
 
 "Oh, they are both the same thing." 
 
 "No epigrams, Cornelius! Yes or no, will you 
 wash my face?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, I am going straight to the sheriff's." 
 
 " Go on, Belle-Plante. Perhaps the sheriff's soap 
 is better than Mother Gothon's." 
 
 Belle-Plante went out with a firm and decided 
 step, as if expecting to reach Clamecy in five min- 
 utes ; but some time afterward he returned. 
 
 "You do not see, Cornelius," said he, "that you 
 do more harm than good to Father Navette. Here 
 is the proposition which I make. If you like, I will 
 
BBLLB-PLANTE AND COBlsrELI US. 229 
 
 give fifteen francs to Navette, and he shall work for 
 me all the year long." 
 
 "Thirty francs," said Cornelius: "I am the 
 usurer, and you the borrower." 
 
 "Mercy!" cried Belle-Plante. "Mademoiselle 
 Louise, intercede for me." 
 
 "I am the usurer, I tell you; I listen to nothing." 
 
 "Well, then, here are your thirty francs; but 
 God will never forgive you for this." 
 
 "He will forgive me for it, you may be sure. 
 Since Grod refuses to interfere to secure justice for 
 the oppressed, he cannot condemn another for doing 
 his work. " 
 
 "Are you going at last to wash my face, 
 Cornelius?" 
 
 "You are very much afraid that I may impose 
 upon you still other restitutions ; but rest easy. I 
 have sufficiently shown you, I believe, the situation 
 of the usurer in relation to the borrower. Now I 
 abdicate." 
 
 Then he took a phial from his pocket, emptied a 
 drop of a certain acid upon the corner of a napkin, 
 and restored to Belle-Plante his natural carnation. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 Cornelius worked at his balloon with so much 
 ardor that toward the end of July half of his cloth 
 was coated. But his first cask of oil was exhausted ; 
 when he wished to use the second, he found that 
 a treacherous hand had adulterated it and that it 
 was no longer of any use to him. This act of dis- 
 ■ loyal malice could have been committed only during 
 the few days that his baggage was left at Belle- 
 Plante's. We cannot say that it was Belle-Plante 
 who did it; in the first place, we know nothing 
 about it, and, in the second place, Belle-Plante's 
 heirs might drag us before the civil courts for dam- 
 age done to the reputation of their uncle, and the 
 civil courts are not disposed to listen to reason. In 
 vain will you claim that the reputation which you 
 thought it your duty to attack was already dam- 
 aged ; just as when you break a square of cracked 
 glass, you must replace it with a new one, willy -niUy. 
 At any rate the cask of oil which was lacking at 
 the very moment when it was needed was irrepar- 
 ably lost to Cornelius. His last resources being 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 231 
 
 exhausted, it would have been impossible for him 
 to get another cask, even though the price had 
 been but thirty sous. 
 
 Our friend Cornelius was in dismay, and you will 
 admit that he might have been for less. S'or the 
 want of a few pints of his oil, it was necessary for 
 him to leave half -finished the finest and most fruit- 
 ful undertaking ever conceived by the human mind. 
 The glory of which he had dreamed so long he saw 
 escaping him like a bird at the moment when one 
 is about to place his hand upon it. His drying oil 
 cost him eighty -five francs a cask. Yet for a cask 
 of this oil he would have given without regret ten 
 of the finest years of his life, as under certain cir- 
 cumstances a woman would give a diamond for a 
 needleful of thread. 
 
 Cornelius did not tear his hair like a classic hero ; 
 he did not cry damnation and malediction, with 
 fist raised toward heaven, like a romantic hero ; for 
 Cornelius was neither classic nor romantic, I beg 
 you to believe ; but he gave his cask a terrible kick, 
 which smashed it in. 
 
 When Louise came, she found him like Marius 
 amid the ruins of Minturnes, sitting on a roll of 
 cloth, his elbows on his knees and his chin on his 
 bands, looking fixedly at a puddle o'f black water 
 
332 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 spreading at his feet. She was frightened at his 
 dismay. 
 
 "What is the matter with you, Cornelius?" she 
 cried. 
 
 Cornelius kept silence. 
 
 "Answer me quickly, Cornelius; what is the 
 matter with you?" 
 
 "Well," said Cornelius, "I have no more oil. 
 This mixture of water and lamphlack is all that 
 Belle-Plante has left me!" 
 
 " What ! Belle-Plante, your brother? Indeed this 
 man is capable of anything. He should be handed 
 over to justice." 
 
 "What are you thinking of, Louise? I make a 
 criminal court resound with my father's name! 
 Oh, no, Louise, a hundred times no ! Better remain 
 wretched and unknown all my life!" 
 
 "You have a noble heart, Cornelius. But it is 
 always such people whorrt fortune attacks, as if it 
 sought a worthy adversary. But perhaps this mis- 
 fortune is not irreparable." 
 
 "It is, Louise, for cloth cannot be made water- 
 proof except with drying oil." 
 
 " I mean, my friend, that perhaps it is not impos- 
 sible to get you another cask of oil." 
 
 "AndhoW, Louise?" said Cornelius, pricking up 
 
SHB FOUND BIM LOOKING MXEDLY AT A PUDDLE OF BLACK WATEB 
 AT HIS FEET, 
 
BBLLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 235 
 
 his ears like a war-horse at the sound of the 
 trumpet. 
 
 "A little patience," said Louise; "I am thinking; 
 I do not yet know." 
 
 And indeed the poor girl was at the end of her 
 resources; she had sold all her jewels, one after 
 another, to pay Cornelius' hoard, he not know- 
 ing it. 
 
 "Come, my friend," she added, "give me your 
 arm, and let us take a walk in our field ; the exer- 
 cise will give us ideas. " 
 
 "True," said Cornelius; "there are writers who 
 can work only while walking ; it was while walking 
 that Jean Jacques Kousseau wrote his 'Nouvelle 
 Heloise.'" 
 
 Cornelius rose mechanically, like a statue set 
 upon its feet by means of a capstan. He took 
 Louise's arm, and both walked silently along beside 
 the willows, with eyes fixed upon the ground, as if 
 they had lost something in the grass. Louise's 
 pensive gaze fell upon Blanchette, Mother Simone's 
 cow, who was innocently browsing in the corner of 
 the field. 
 
 "I have your oil, Cornelius," she shouted, clap- 
 ping her hands. 
 
 "My oil! where is it?" asked Cornelius, who had 
 
236 BBLLB-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 begun in spite of himself to dream of a geometrical 
 solution. 
 
 "See," said Louise, "there! Blanchette, my old 
 nurse's cow !" 
 
 "You are crazy, Louise. Do you think that one 
 can coat balloon-cloth with butter and cheese?" 
 
 "Gro after Mother Simone, and don't trouble 
 yourself about the rest." 
 
 Cornelius soon returned with his venerable 
 hostess. 
 
 "Nurse," said Louise, "how much do you love 
 me?" 
 
 "As much as the daughter whom I lost," said 
 Mother Simone. 
 
 "Then you love me more than Blanchette?" 
 
 "How can you ask such a question, mademoi- 
 selle?" 
 
 " Well, if I found myself in a position of great 
 embarrassment, if all my hopes of happiness were 
 at stake, would you sell Blanchette to reheve me 
 of my difficulty?" 
 
 "If it were absolutely necessary," said Mother 
 Simone. 
 
 "Oh, it is absolutely necessary, nurse," said 
 Louise, taking her hands and covering them with 
 kisses. "If it were not absolutely necessary, you 
 
BELLS-PLAKTE and COENBttUS. SS? 
 
 may know that I would not be so cruel as to deprive 
 you of your beloved cow. " 
 
 "Dear girl, you pay me for my cow ten times 
 more than she is worth. To-morrow I will take her 
 to the fair." 
 
 "And you will give me the money, nurse?" 
 
 " I will give it to you, dear girl. But at least 
 permit me to kiss you. Since you have become a 
 young lady, I no longer dare give myself that 
 pleasure.-i" 
 
 Louise threw herself upon Mother Simone's neck, 
 who pressed her lovingly against her red handker- 
 chief. Meanwhile Cornelius wept upon his frill like 
 a booby. 
 
 Mother Simone wished to return to her stove. 
 
 "No, stay, Mother Simone," said Cornelius; "I 
 have something to say to you. The deed which 
 you have just done is beautiful, undoubtedly ; but 
 permit me to view only one aspect of it. It proves 
 irrefutably that paternal love is not a consequence 
 of paternity — that is, that one does not love a child 
 simply because one has given it life. You did not 
 give life, Mother Simone, to Mademoiselle Desalle- 
 magnes ; you gave her only your milk at the rate 
 of fifteen francs a month, which is almost ten sous 
 a pint ; you have been to her only what the deer of 
 
^38 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNELIUS. 
 
 Genevieve de Brabant was to her poor child. 
 Nevertheless you love Mademoiselle Desallemagnes 
 more than her father loves her, I am sure. Why 
 so, Mother Simone? Because you are accustomed 
 to see her, because she has grown and developed 
 under your eyes, and also because she is pretty. 
 You love her, in short, as a florist loves the flower 
 which he waters every day and whose development 
 he watches. Well, it is in that way, and not other- 
 wise, that a father loves his child. His child is to 
 him a little creature to which he is bound by ties of 
 friendship. If the child is given to squalling, if it 
 is ugly, if it has pimples on its face, if it has the 
 diarrhoea, he feels nothing but repugnance for it ; 
 and this repugnance continues if the child is ill- 
 organized, if it has a disagreeable nature, if, in short, 
 it has any of those faults that repel affection. If a 
 woman were to bring a hare into the world, do you 
 think. Mother Simone, that her husband would be 
 very fond of it? I am persuaded, for my part, if it 
 were to be made into a stew, he would eat it very 
 willingly. When a child comes into the world de- 
 formed, its parents would much rather give it a 
 grave than a cradle. Nevertheless, why do they 
 not love it, if to love a child it is necessary only to 
 have created it? You will tell me that they become 
 
EEIiLB-PtAKTE AND COENEWITS. 339 
 
 attached to it ; but that arises from the friendship 
 necessarily estabKshed between beings who have 
 continual relations with each other. Almost all the 
 acts of a father toward his child are acts of egoism. 
 Thus, instead of buying the child a three-franc doll, 
 which would make the child very happy, he buys 
 him a fine coat because the coat will do honor to the 
 father of the child. If he is a notary and his son is 
 a poet, he will make a notary of him ; if he is a 
 noble and his daughter loves a plebeian, he will 
 marry her to a noble; and so in everything. A 
 father who is very indifferent regarding his son is 
 seized with regret as soon as he has lost him. Do 
 you know why, Mother Simone? Because this 
 father had rested hopes of some sort on his son's 
 head ; because his pride dreamed of a fine social 
 position for him, the brilliancy of which would be 
 reflected upon the family ; because he thought that 
 in some way he would do honor to him. The proof 
 of this is that we never regret our children more 
 than when they die at an age when the future has 
 not yet had time to shatter the dreams that we have 
 entertained concerning them. If a little girl dies, 
 her mother regrets her as a great lady ; if a little 
 boy, the father weeps over him as a great poet, 
 a great financier, a great lawyer, and perhaps as 
 
240 belLe-plantE and COKNBLIUS. 
 
 a great cabinet minister whom the family have 
 lost." 
 
 Cornelius held Mother Simone by her apron, so 
 afraid was he that she might escape him. 
 
 "Ah!" said she, "will you soon be finished. 
 Monsieur Cornelius? I must go and see if your 
 dinner is not burning." 
 
 "Well," said Cornelius, "Louise will give me the 
 pleasure of listening to the end of my discourse." 
 
 "Not at all," interrupted Louise; "I paid no 
 attention to the beginning." 
 
 " Then I will finish it when Mother Simone comes 
 back." 
 
 " Yes, " said she, " yes, wait for me under the 
 elm." 
 
 As she passed by her cow, Mother Simone gave 
 her a handful of grass, which Blanchette ate from 
 her hand like a well-bred beast, and she kissed her 
 on the nose. 
 
 "Poor Blanchette!" said she, "I hoped that we 
 should never part; but to relieve Louise from 
 embarrassment we must be resigned to this sep- 
 aration. How you will suffer away from me, my 
 Blanchette!" 
 
 As Mother Simone moved away, Blanchette, as 
 if she had understood what her mistress had just 
 
BfiLIiB-PLANTE AND COESTELIUS. 
 
 341 
 
 said, gave a cry of lament, like tliat of a cow whose 
 calf has just been taken from her. 
 
 " They will break my heart between them, " said 
 Louise; "I must try to persuade my father to buy 
 her cow, and later we will return it to her." 
 
 AS SHE PASSED HER COW MME. SIMONE GAVE HER A HANDFUL, OP 
 GBASS. 
 
 " Louise, " said Cornelius, " I fear now that I may 
 not succeed. If I should not succeed, who would 
 repay you and this poor woman, who is so devoted 
 to us?" 
 
 "You will succeed, my friend," answered Louise; 
 
 " those whom one loves thus upon earth, God loves 
 
 also in heaven." 
 16 
 
243 BELLl-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 At all events, the next morning poor Blanchette 
 went to the Oorvol fair, and in the afternoon she 
 was sold, for Father Desallemagnes would not listen 
 to the plan. 
 
 Cornelius hastened to write to Paris, ordering a 
 third cask of oil, and pending the execution of the 
 order he went back to his equations. Now, this 
 is what happened to him. 
 
 It was nine o'clock in the evening, and he was 
 very tranquilly engaged in eating a leg of mutton 
 at Mother Simone's table. A carriage drawn by 
 four horses stopped before the tavern door. The 
 cracking of the whips had attracted a considerable 
 number of curiosity-seekers about the carriage. 
 Three men got out ; one of high stature, with an 
 embroidered coat and a long cue hanging over his 
 shoulders; the two others also dressed very richly, 
 but in costumes which seemed a little worn. With 
 them was a very fine poodle. This aristocratic quad- 
 ruped had unceremoniously thrown himself upon 
 Mother Simone's chickens as upon a taxable tribe. 
 
 "So, ho! Fontenoy!" cried one of the three per- 
 sonages, and the dog came and placed himself be- 
 side him. 
 
 Cornelius was going out to see what it all meant, 
 when the three travellers entered the dining-room. 
 
BELLE-PtANtl! AND COENELIUS. ^43 
 
 " Monsieur, " said the man in the embroidered 
 coat, addressing him, "are you not the savant 
 Cornelius?" 
 
 "The savant Cornelius? No. But the fact is 
 that I am Cornelius." 
 
 " Then it is you, monsieur, whom we wish to see. 
 But do not let us interfere with your supper. Mon- 
 sieur Cornelius ; in fact, if you will permit it, we 
 will add our fare to yours. " 
 
 A servant brought from the carriage some cold 
 meats and a considerable number of bottles of wine ; 
 and the newcomers sat down to table with our 
 savant. 
 
 "I do not know," said Cornelius to my Uncle 
 Benjamin — for it was he — "whether I have seen 
 you or dreamed of you, but your face is not un- 
 familiar to me." 
 
 "You may have seen me at the king's," said my 
 uncle, "if you go there." 
 
 "It was not at the king's, where I do not go, but 
 it must have been in the stage-coach going from 
 Auxerre to Olamecy ; you had a red coat, and you 
 made us laugh all the way." 
 
 "Then, monsieur, you have been abused by a 
 deceitful resemblance; for I am the king's prime 
 minister. Monsieur de Choiseuil ; this general officer 
 
344 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKNEMXTS. 
 
 at your left is the Marshal de Saxe, and this other 
 the Chancellor of France." 
 
 Now, the Chancellor of France was Machecourt. 
 
 "I thought," said Cornelius, "that Maurice de 
 Saxe had heen dead a long time." 
 
 "I know that public sheets in the pay of England 
 have spread this report with a view to discouraging 
 the army; but God, who protects France, as you 
 must have seen on the six-franc pieces, will long 
 preserve to the king this worthy and faithful 
 servant." 
 
 "I hope so, monsieur," said Cornelius, "and I am 
 delighted to see that Monsieur the Marshal eats and 
 drinks like a man who has no desire to die soon." 
 
 "What you have just said, Monsieur Cornelius, 
 proves that the benefits with which the king, my 
 master, honors you could not be better placed, and 
 I will make them known to you. " 
 
 "Permit me. Your Excellency, to what benefits 
 do you refer? I have never received from the king 
 anything but warnings to pay my taxes." 
 
 "If you will listen to me to the end. Monsieur 
 Cornelius, you will see that you owe the king more 
 gratitude than you think. His Majesty knows that 
 you are building a balloon, and that you have found 
 a way to steer it through the atmospheric currents." 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AKD CORNELIUS. 345 
 
 " And how did His Majesty find that out? I have 
 told only Louise and Father Desallemagnes. " 
 
 " It makes little difference to you, monsieur, how 
 His Majesty found it out. Do you wish perchance 
 to penetrate state secrets?" 
 
 " Not at all. Your Excellency, but I have a right 
 to be astonished at what you tell me." 
 
 "Be as astonished as you please, monsieur; the 
 king will find no fault with that; but listen to me 
 without interruption. The king, then, has charged 
 me to hand you twelve hundred francs as evidence 
 of the esteem he bears you, and he invites you to 
 continue your useful discoveries." 
 
 Cornelius could not believe his ears ; but M. de 
 Choiseuil having made a sign to the lackey who 
 was waiting on the table, the latter went out and 
 soon returned with a bag of money. 
 
 "Here, monsieur, is the sum His Majesty has 
 charged me to give to you ; you can count it to see 
 if there are really twelve hundred francs. " 
 
 "I do not distrust His Majesty," said Cornelius, 
 " and I beg you to convey to him the assurance of 
 my gratitude and my devotion. Your Excellency, 
 might I offer you a glass of currant ratafia? Mother 
 Simone makes very good ratafia." 
 
 " We accept very willingly, the Marshal de Saxe 
 
246 BELLE-PLANTB AND COENELITJS. 
 
 and I, and I shall be sure to report to the king re- 
 garding the welcome you have given us." 
 
 "And Monsieur the Chancellor, will he not take a 
 glass of ratafia?" 
 
 "I forbid it," said Benjamin; "a man of the law! 
 That would not be proper." 
 
 "And I tell you, Benjamin, that I will take a 
 glass ! It is not against the law." 
 
 "If you take it, I will have you put in the 
 Bastile." 
 
 "And I, if you prevent me, will blow upon your 
 ministry and reduce it to dust. " 
 
 "Well," said Cornelius, "the Chancellor seems to 
 be on very familiar terms with Your Excellency." 
 
 "What can you expect? These lawyers put on 
 airs. I will present a report to His Majesty recom- 
 mending that they be made to sit upon a stool. " 
 
 Meanwhile Mother Simone had brought the de- 
 canter, and the glasses were as soon emptied as 
 filled. Cornelius thought that the king's ministers 
 were good drinkers, but he did as they did, per- 
 suaded that one could not go wrong in following the 
 example of the prime minister. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Cornelius, in a very low 
 voice, to M. de Choiseuil, "that the Chancellor is a 
 little bit tipsy." 
 
BELLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 347 
 
 "He is blind drunk," said the sergeant. 
 
 " Marshal," said Machecourt, " if you had not won 
 the battle of Fontenoy " 
 
 " Pay no attention to that. Chancellor ; you know 
 that military people talk as rudely as street porters." 
 
 Meanwhile the decanter had been emptied. 
 
 "Mother Simone," said Cornelius, "another de- 
 canter, if you please; I will pay for it." 
 
 "But I have no more," said Mother Simone. 
 
 "Well, is this the only decanter in the village?" 
 said Choiseuil. 
 
 " Monsieur Belle-Plante has ratafia, which he sells 
 at two sous a glass. " 
 
 "Well, go for his decanter; you will tell him it 
 is for the prime minister." 
 
 Mother Simone came back, and said that Belle- 
 Plante would not let them have his decanter for less 
 than twelve francs. 
 
 "Offer him fifteen, and tell him to bring it him- 
 self." 
 
XIX. 
 
 In fact, a few moments later Belle -Plante, wear- 
 ing his cotton nightcap, came carrying the decanter 
 in his arms, like a nurse carrying a baby. 
 
 "You rascal!" said Cornelius, whose reason was 
 returning, "why don't you salute the minister?" 
 
 And he snatched oflE his nightcap and threw it to 
 the end of the room. 
 
 "Why!" said Belle-Plante, "you see that I can- 
 not salute, since I am holding the decanter in both 
 hands." 
 
 "Don't mind him, Monsieur Belle-Plante, " said 
 the prime minister; "these savants are extremely 
 free in their manners." 
 
 "It is twelve francs," said Belle-Plante, placing 
 the decanter on the table. " To whom must I apply 
 for the pay?" 
 
 "Here are eighteen," said Choiseuil, "but you 
 must do us the honor to drink with us." 
 
 "He, Belle-Plante, drink with you?" said Cor- 
 nelius; "why, he is a peasant, three times a peas- 
 ant; he doesn't even know how to read." 
 
 248 
 
BELLE- PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 349 
 
 "What difference does that make?" said the 
 prime minister. " He is a good farmer, and His 
 Majesty, whom I represent, honors all people of 
 merit. " 
 
 "Eh! Cornelius, do you hear that, balloon- 
 maker?" 
 
 "And you, do you see this, carrot-planter?" said 
 Cornelius, showing him his bag. 
 
 "His Majesty," said the minister, "has charged 
 me to drink with Monsieur Belle-Plante. So sit 
 down. Monsieur Belle-Plante, and drink with 
 us." 
 
 Cornelius having approached his glass to Belle - 
 Plante's, the latter drew his back. 
 
 "What!" said the minister, "you will not drink 
 with your brother, Monsieur Belle-Plante?" 
 
 " How does Your Excellency know that he is my 
 brother?" said Cornelius. 
 
 " Again I tell you, monsieur, that does not con- 
 cern you; it is a state secret." 
 
 The Chancellor had risen from the table, and, 
 taking a double handful of currant seeds from the 
 bottom of the emptied decanter, he poured it down 
 the poodle's throat. The Marshal de Saxe sang 
 "Aussitdt que la Lumiere," beating time with his 
 glass; and Belle-Plante ate the rest of the mutton, 
 
350 BBLLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 calculating with satisfaction that he would not 
 need to breakfast the next day. 
 
 Meanwhile the song of the Marshal, the laughter 
 of the Chancellor, and the barking of the poodle, 
 who would swallow no more currant seeds, attracted 
 the constable, who was making his rounds. He 
 knocked at Mother Simone's door, triumphant at 
 finding the drinkers violating the law. Mother 
 Simone, made bold by the presence of His Majesty's 
 prime minister, would not open. 
 
 "In the name of the king, open!" replied the 
 constable. 
 
 " If I open, your nose will be flattened, my poor 
 Baudruche." 
 
 "Well, open at any rate," said the constable. 
 
 M. de Choiseuil gave the order to open the door. 
 
 "Gentlemen," said the constable, "I declare you 
 under arrest." 
 
 "What! His Majesty's prime minister under 
 arriest? Impertinent fellow, take care lest I strip 
 you of your office." 
 
 " But you are not all cabinet ministers here, " said 
 the constable. " Here is Belle-Plante ; he is not a 
 cabinet minister." 
 
 "True," said M. de Choiseuil; "since you must 
 declare some one under arrest, let it be Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante." 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 251 
 
 "But, Baudruche- 
 
 " There is no Baudruche about it ; I declare you 
 under arrest, Monsieur Belle-Plante." 
 
 "Very good, constable, you shall be promoted." 
 
 "But, Your Excellency," said Belle-Plante, "you 
 know very well that it was you who forced me to 
 remain." 
 
 " Well, what do you expect? You are violating 
 the law. I can do nothing about it. The law must 
 take its course." 
 
 " And Cornelius ! he is violating it as much as I 
 am." 
 
 "Cornelius has the king's permission to remain in 
 the tavern as long as he likes." 
 
 "Come, Choiseuil," said the Chancellor, "have 
 pity on this poor man." 
 
 "What, Chancellor, is this the way that you 
 would carry out the regulations? This man is 
 pointed out to me as a miser, a usurer, almost a 
 robber ; moreover, it is proved by the fact that he 
 charged us fifteen francs for a decanter not worth 
 thirty sous. Besides, he is violating another regu- 
 lation in selling liquor without a license." 
 
 "The case is serious, truly," said the Chancellor; 
 "what does the Marshal think about it?" 
 
 "I think that, if he will give the constable the 
 
253 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORKBLIUS. 
 
 fifteen francs which he has just received, he should 
 be allowed to go free. And you, constable, do you 
 consent?" 
 
 "If monsieur is willing." 
 
 "And you, Belle-Plante?" 
 
 "Since it is necessary," said he, with a sigh. 
 
 "The case is settled," said the prime minister, 
 giving a huge and sonorous yawn. " But it is time 
 to start, gentlemen; remember that we are sum- 
 moned to the king on pressing business. Adieu, 
 Monsieur Cornelius!" 
 
 But Cornelius was sleeping blissfully on the table. 
 
XX. 
 
 The next morning Cornelius found himself in his 
 bed, w.ithout knowing how he had got there. 
 
 He thought he had dreamed of the Duke de 
 Choiseuil and of the Marshal de Saxe ; but the bag 
 containing twelve hundred francs lying on his table 
 recalled him to reality, and all that he understood 
 of the scene that had taken place was that he had 
 twelve hundred francs. He rose hastily, pocketed 
 the money, and went out without attracting Mother 
 Simone's notice. Louise learned from Mother Si- 
 mone in the morning what had happened the night 
 before, and she, too, believed in the reality of the 
 prime minister. She awaited Cornelius ; then, grow- 
 ing impatient at his tardiness, she went to seek him 
 in the village suburbs. All that any one could tell 
 her of hina was that he had been seen to pass that 
 morning over the pertuis of Armes. Finally, at 
 four o'clock in the afternoon, Cornelius arrived, 
 driving before him, with a roll of wove paper. 
 Mother Simone's cow. Blanchette went straight 
 to her stable, and Cornelius to the house of M. 
 
 253 
 
3S4 BELLE-PLANTE AND COEiTBLIUg. 
 
 Desallemagnes. At sight of him Louise felt a de- 
 sire to throw herself into his arms, but she con- 
 cealed her joy under a displeased air. 
 
 "So it is you at last, Monsieur Cornelius ! It is 
 very nice of you to start off without telling any one ! 
 And where have you been, you abominable child?" 
 
 "Louise," said Cornelius, when Mademoiselle 
 Desallemagnes was seated, "why have you no 
 more rings?" 
 
 "Because I no longer have any," said Louise, 
 taken unawares by this question. 
 
 " Well, I wish you to have rings." 
 
 And he took from his pocket ten rings, which he 
 threw upon Louise's apron. 
 
 "You are mad, Cornelius! What do you expect 
 me to do with ten rings?" 
 
 " No, Louise, I am not mad. Have you not ten 
 fingers?" 
 
 "Yes, but two are thumbs." 
 
 "True," said Cornelius; "I have made an error 
 in calculation, which the jeweller ought to have 
 rectified ; but it is an error that is easily repaired. 
 I will buy six other rings, that you may have two 
 for each finger. You must make up for lost time. 
 Why, Louise, have you no longer any necklaces?" 
 
 "Because it is too hot, and they embarrass me." 
 
"Wellj I wish you to have necklaces." 
 
 And he took from his pocket four necklaces of 
 different colors and placed them in Louise's apron. 
 
 " But what do you expect me to do with these, 
 Cornelius?" 
 
 " What one usually does with a necklace, Louise. 
 Louise, why — Louise, — but where the devil is the 
 pocket that has the ear-rings?" said he, passing 
 his hand over his waistcoat. " Ah ! here they are, 
 Louise. Why have you no longer any ear-rings? 
 Why have you no longer any rings? Why have 
 you no longer any necklace?" 
 
 "You bore me with all your whys." 
 
 "Well, I fa,m going to tell you. You have no 
 longer any rings, no longer any necklace, no longer 
 any ear-rings, because you have sold them all to 
 feed poor Cornelius. Cornelius' family has aban- 
 doned him. You have said: 'This man has no one 
 but me upon earth ; I must take care of him, ' and 
 you have taken care of him as a mother would her 
 child. Cornelius was rich, and he has made haste 
 to profit by his wealth to show you his gratitude. 
 See, Louise, here are some ear-rings." 
 
 And he laid upon Louise's apron four pairs of 
 ear-rings, which would have made a countess smile 
 with joy. 
 
256 BELLE-PLANTE AND COKSfELtUg. • 
 
 "Heavens! Cornelius, what need have I of all 
 these jewels? You would have done better to buy 
 back Mother Simone's cow." 
 
 "True," said Cornelius, "that poor Blanchette, a 
 quadruped so full of feeling! But who told you, 
 Louise, that I did not buy her back?" 
 
 "What! you thought of that, Cornelius?" 
 
 "Yes, I thought of that, savant though I am. 
 "^e came back from Olamecy,' Blanchette and I, 
 and she is now enjoj'ing Mother Simone's em- 
 braces." 
 
 "Poor nurse, how happy she must be!" 
 
 "I thought of Mother Simone as well as of her 
 cow. Here, Louise, is a gold chain, which I beg 
 you to give to her." 
 
 "Are you joking? Does Mother Simone wear 
 necklaces?" 
 
 " What is that to me? She can give it to her 
 cow, if she likes. Here is a silver snuff-box besides, 
 which you will ask her to accept in my name." 
 
 "But, my friend. Mother Simone does not take 
 snuff." 
 
 "Must Cornelius, then, be a monster of ingrati- 
 tude?" 
 
 Louise took the chain and the snuff-box, but with 
 the intention of converting these two brilliant but 
 
BELLE-PLANTB A^D COKNELIUS. 257 
 
 useless articles into something better suited to her 
 nurse's wants. 
 
 "Now, Cornelius, will you explain to me how 
 your pockets have suddenly become storehouses of 
 jewelry? I know that the king's prime minister 
 came yesterday to see you " 
 
 "And the Marshal de Saxe, Louise, and the High 
 Chancellor ! The king holds me in esteem. He is 
 interested in my balloon, and he has sent me twelve 
 hundred francs by his prime minister. " 
 
 " So this, then, is the explanation of all your lib- 
 erality! And I will bet that now you have no 
 money left." 
 
 " I have still nine francs and six sous. That will 
 do for my small expenses until my balloon is fin- 
 ished." 
 
 "Nine francs and six sous, out of twelve hun- 
 dred francs ! What a spendthrift you are, Corne- 
 lius ! I see clearly that when we are married I shall 
 have to hold the purse. But did you buy anything 
 for yourself?" 
 
 "Yes, Louise, a roll of wove paper and a parallel- 
 ogram of India ink." 
 
 " But you ought to have thought of yourself, Cor- 
 nelius. You have only one coat." 
 
 "Well, have I two bodies?" 
 
 17 
 
358 BELLE-PLANT^ AND COENELIUS. 
 
 "You have only half a dozen frills." 
 
 "There are thousands of men in France who 
 
 have none." 
 
 "You are lacking in necessities." 
 
 "What does one lack when one is happy?" 
 
 " But suppose you should he unfortunate enough 
 
 to break a square of glass in the village?" 
 
 "Well, I would come to you for a twelve-sows 
 
 piece to pay for it." 
 
XXI. 
 
 Meanwhile the days were getting shorter. Cor- 
 nelius knew very well how to employ his evenings ; 
 but Belle-Plante, who had no Louise and did not 
 know how to read, what could he do with those two 
 mortal hours which stretch between supper-time 
 and bed-time? Belle-Plante, in order to avoid light- 
 ing up, went to bed as soon as he was through his 
 supper. But lost time is an expense ; Belle-Plante 
 was too great a master in the art of avarice to al- 
 low this consideration to escape him, and he de- 
 plored and mourned these useless hours which he 
 spent in tossing and turning in his bed. What 
 should he do, then, to pass his. evenings? You, 
 reader, would have gone to the cafe; but to Belle- 
 Plante the cafe was a forbidden Eden, in which he 
 had never set foot. What, then, did Belle-Plante 
 do with his money? you will ask. He put the six- 
 franc pieces in one drawer, the smaller coins in an- 
 other, and the louis in his belt. That is how he en- 
 joyed his wealth. A sad pleasure, you will think. 
 
 359 
 
360 BELLE-PLANTB AND COKNBLIUS. 
 
 In fact, I am of your opinion, and I am persuaded 
 that it gives a miser more pain to lose a sou than 
 pleasure to make one. Oh ! avarice is a heavy ball 
 to drag after one. If God should say to me, I will 
 give you an income of forty millions on condition 
 that you become a miser, I would say to him : " My 
 God, keep your capital and leave me my careless- 
 ness ; if I have only a sou, I enjoy it ; if I had your 
 millions, I should not enjoy them at aU." 
 
 Belle-Plante, however, thought in the first place 
 of learning to knit ; but he reflected that at this 
 trade he would not make enough to pay for his 
 candles. Then it occurred to him that he spent 
 much money for the manufacture of his cloth, and 
 that the trade of a weaver was easy to learn. He 
 decided to become a weaver. 
 
 Father Navettte had an old loom which he had 
 consigned to the attic. Belle-Plante bought it of 
 him, but on condition that he, Navette, should come 
 every evening to give him a lesson in weaving at 
 the rate of five sous a lesson. The loom was set up 
 in his cellar, the air-hole in which he enlarged and 
 closed with a sash covered with oiled paper, and he 
 began to ply the shuttle. 
 
 When it was known in the village that Belle- 
 Plante had become a weaver, he was assailed with 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COENELIUS. 361 
 
 jokes from every side, and he could not go out with- 
 out making himself a target for some witticism. 
 Moreover, the gamins, who have no mercy for any- 
 thing that is ridiculous — these flies that bite the 
 strong man without his being able to defend him- 
 self — gathered every evening at his cellar-door, and, 
 opening it every minute, shouted at him : " Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante, ploughman, grazier, and weav- 
 er!" Belle-Plan te, as soon as this unfortunate 
 phrase reached his ears, seized his whip, which was 
 always within reach, and ascended the stairs four 
 steps at a time ; but when he was in the street, 
 the gamins scattered, shouting: "Monsieur Belle- 
 Plante, ploughman !" like a flock of screaming birds, 
 only to return again as soon as he was once more 
 seated at his loom. 
 
 One day Pierrot, Father Desallemagne's shepherd, 
 thought of an improvement which had so far escaped 
 his young comrades. He thrust his head through 
 the oiled paper and began to shout at Belle-Plante, 
 at an elevation of six feet above him : " Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante, ploughman!" At sight of this head 
 so impudentlj' violating his domicile, Belle-Plante 
 promptly threw down his shuttle and rushed for his 
 whip. Pierrot tried to withdraw his head, but his 
 head, whether because it liked being in a fine frame 
 
262 BELLE-PLANTE AKD COENELITJS. 
 
 of oiled paper or for some other reason, persisted in 
 remaining. Now, as .Pierrot could not go away 
 without his head, however pressing a motive he 
 might have for departure, he made a violent effort 
 to release himself. But his ears would not yield; 
 the sash was wiser, and yielded, and Pierrot carried 
 it away like a collar over his shoulders. Belle- 
 Plante started in pursuit of his sash ; but, seeing 
 that he could not overtake the thief, he shouted : 
 "At least, give me back my sash, you young ras- 
 cal, and I will do you no harm." But the scamp, 
 frightened by the movement of the sash beating 
 upon his shoulders, ran only the faster, like a dog 
 with a frying-pan tied to his tail. Pa. 'don me, 
 reader, I make a stupid comparison. The words 
 tail and frying-pan are not admissible in fashion- 
 able drawing-rooms, and if a dog were to enter one, 
 he would have to leave his tail at the door. The 
 frightened child rushed into Monsieur Desalle- 
 magnes' kitchen, where BeUe-Plante arrived a few 
 seconds later, panting and wheezing like an old pair 
 of bellows with a hole in them. 
 
 Louise and Cornelius quickly understood the sit- 
 uation, and shouted with laughter. 
 
 " Will you permit me, Mademoiselle Desalle- 
 magnes, to thrash this little wretch?" 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AKD CORNELIUS. 263 
 
 "And why, Monsieur Belle-Plante, do you wish 
 to strike this child?" 
 
 "Because he has stolen my sash." 
 
 "I take him under my protection, " said Cornelius^ 
 " and, if you touch this child, you will have to deal 
 with me." 
 
 " At least, then, savant, make him return me my 
 sash." 
 
 The child had succeeded in extricating himself 
 from the sash. 
 
 "Here," said he, throwing it into the middle of 
 the room, "there is your sash." 
 
 Belle-Plante went to pick it up; but Cornelius 
 was before him. He took the sash and threw it 
 into the fire. 
 
 "So," said Belle-Plante, folding his arms, "you 
 wish to ruin me, Cornelius?" 
 
 "I wish to correct you," said Cornelius; "for a 
 miser of your stamp is worse than a ruined man ; 
 he enjoys nothing. I will not suffer my father's 
 son to make himself the butt of everybody with 
 gayety of heart ; I will not endure that wherever 
 a group of peasants gather your ridiculous and 
 base conduct shall be the subject of their conversa- 
 tion ; you will find me always in your path, and, if 
 you denounce me to the sheriff, who is no better 
 
264 BELLE-PLANTE AND OORKELItTS. 
 
 than you, I will remind the courts of what took 
 place at the time of my father's death. Now be- 
 gone, for I am disgusted, and so is Louise, I am 
 sure, to see a man who has ten farms tiring him- 
 self out in running after a five-sows sash." 
 
 Belle-Plante left without saying a word. 
 
 Meanwhile the oil for which Cornelius was wait- 
 ing had arrived ; he went to work at his balloon 
 again with fresh ardor, and soon it was in readiness 
 for a trial. This trial took place in the presence of 
 the whole village. The balloon rose majestically 
 until it attained a height where it seemed no more 
 than a gray spot upon the blue of the sky. Only 
 Cornelius abstained from following it into the heav- 
 ens, making Mother Simone's cat his substitute. 
 The balloon and the cat came back safe and sound, 
 after a sojourn of an hour in the atmosphere, and 
 Cornelius was very well satisfied with the success 
 of his work. Nothing remained to be done but to 
 attach the steering apparatus to his balloon ; but he 
 was not yet at the end of his difficulties. One day, 
 when he was at work in his fields, the priest came 
 to find him. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the priest, "you are engaged 
 in an impious work." 
 
 "How so, Monsieur le Cure?" 
 
BBLLE-PLANTB AND COEKELIUS. 265 
 
 "Because, with all your mechanical feats, you 
 cause people to doubt the existence of God." 
 
 " On the contrary, Monsieur le Cure, the greater 
 the intelligence, the more necessary it is to suppose 
 an author thereof." 
 
 " If God had intended to give man domain over 
 the air, he would have caused him to be born with 
 wings." 
 
 "If God had intended that priests should wear a 
 bit of waxed leather on their heads, he would have 
 caused them to be born with a skull-cap." 
 
 "That is a jest, not an argument, monsieur." 
 
 " Well, I will give you an argument. If God had 
 forbidden man the air, he would have made the at- 
 mosphere so that it could not sustain a balloon." 
 
 "Unenlightened men willsay that it was in a 
 balloon that Elias rose to heaven. " 
 
 " Well, I would not swear that it was not. " 
 
 "Then you are an impious man!" 
 
 "I do not deny it. Monsieur le Cure." 
 
 "I will close the doors of the church against you." 
 
 "What do I care? I do not go there." 
 
 "I will refuse you the sacraments." 
 
 "I do not use them." 
 
 " I will not bury you in my parish." 
 
 "That will be twelve francs saved for my heirs." 
 
366 BELLE-PLAKTB AKD COKKELIUS. 
 
 "I will have your balloon burned on the public 
 square." 
 
 " And I, Monsieur le Cure, if you make the slight- 
 est attack upon my balloon of whatever nature, will 
 set fire to your parsonage. " 
 
 "You shall hear from me, monsieur." 
 
 " Very good ; but, if you write me by mail, put 
 a stamp on your letter." 
 
 "The miscreant!" said the priest, as he went 
 away. 
 
 " The sycophant !" said Cornelius, working at his 
 wheels. 
 
XXII. 
 
 A FEW days later' a very natural storm, charged 
 with electricity, like all the others, burst over the 
 village and did some damage to the crops and vines. 
 This catastrophe occurred on Saturday. On Sunday 
 the priest ascended his pulpit and said that the 
 wrath of God had burst upon the village because of 
 the diabolical inventions of Cornelius; that our 
 friend Cornelius was a sorcerer, and that, as long 
 as his balloon should remain in existence, the vil- 
 lage would be a prey to all sorts of scourges, which 
 he specified, so sure was he of the fact. In support 
 of his assertions, he cited numerous texts from the 
 Holy Scriptures, for the Holy Scriptures are to hyp- 
 ocrites what the Code is to lawyers without a con- 
 science: they find in them a justification for every 
 iniquity. This sermon, accompanied with gestures 
 a yard wide and with big white eyes rolled toward 
 heaven, had a prodi^ous effect upon the faithful of 
 Armes. 
 
 Louise, who heard them whispering about her, 
 foresaw what was going to happen. She left the 
 
 267 
 
268 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 church, and, after warning Cornelius, she started 
 for Clamecy on the run with the design of calling 
 for armed force. 
 
 On coming from mass, the peasants gathered un- 
 der the church porch and excited each other to march 
 against Cornelius' balloon. 
 
 "Yes," shouted Panuche, "not an ear of corn 
 will grow in the village as long as this diabolical 
 machine exists. This Cornelius is a sorcerer, as is 
 proved by the way in which he painted Monsieur 
 Belle-Plante, an honest man who never did harm to 
 any one. Imagine, my brothers, a coating on which 
 even holy water had no effect!" 
 
 "It is true," said Belle-Plante, "and it burned 
 my cheeks like a drug from hell. I did everything 
 that a man possibly could do to get rid of it, but 
 without success, and he, with a drop of water, made 
 it disappear." 
 
 " He rides wolves," said an old peasant; "I once 
 met him astride one of those animals. As he ap- 
 proached me, I made the sign of the cross, and he 
 changed into smoke." 
 
 "Then," said Navette, "if that be the case, Ba- 
 zout should be sent to make the sign of the cross on 
 his balloon." 
 
 "I do not believe," said the fisherman, "that he 
 
BELLE-PLANTE AND COKIJELIUS. 269 
 
 is a sorcerer ; but at any rate he is a good sorcerer, 
 for he got me back the nineteen francs which Mon- 
 sieur Belle-Plante overcharged me." 
 
 "What does nineteen francs amount to?" said 
 Panuche, "compared with the injury that he does 
 to us other proprietors? Every year our crops will 
 be crushed by the hail, and you will soon see some 
 pest break out in the village. That is the opinion 
 of Monsieur le Cure." 
 
 "Yes, yes," cried all the peasants, "some pest 
 will break out in the village." 
 
 " Come on ; let all who love Monsieur le Cure fol- 
 low me," shouted Panuche. 
 
 And they tumultuously started for Mother Si- 
 mone's field. 
 
 But Cornelius had been warned in time. He had 
 put himself on a war footing. The good Cornelius 
 had armed himself with Mother Simone's spit. He 
 had thrust his largest compasses into his belt, to 
 say nothing of many smaller ones that he had in 
 his pocket, and he had taken as an auxiliary the 
 brave Dragon, Mother Simone's dog, to whom he 
 had become strongly attached. 
 
 Cornelius awaited his assailants at the threshold 
 of the shed in which his balloon was stored. He 
 was too weak to defend the approaches to the place. 
 
370 BBLLE-PLAKTE AND COENELIUS. 
 
 So he allowed them to pass the hedge without oppo- 
 sition; but, when they were within reach of his 
 spit, he traced a circle around him with its point, 
 and declared in a loud and intelligible voice that 
 he would impale upon it the first to cross this line 
 of demarcation. This measure irritated the most 
 ardent. 
 
 Cornelius, who, on the whole, was as agreeable 
 to an arrangement as to an assault, profited by this 
 moment of indecision to begin a negotiation. 
 
 "Let us see, gentlemen, " said he to his assailants, 
 "what do you want of me? Before fighting let us 
 have an explanation. If your demand is reasona- 
 ble, I shall be pleased to accede to it." 
 
 " We wish to destroy your balloon," said Panuche. 
 
 "I should be delighted, Monsieur Panuche, to be 
 agreeable to you, but really I cannot go as far as 
 that." 
 
 "Fire the balloon! Fire the balloon!" shouted 
 the peasants. 
 
 "Then, gentlemen, you will explain to me what 
 grievances you have against my balloon." 
 
 "It is a work of Satan," said Panuche. "You 
 are the cause of the hail that has fallen upon our 
 village. God has struck us because of you." 
 
 "Eeally!" said Cornelius; "let us reason a little, 
 
BBLLE-PLANTB AHD CORNELIUS. 371 
 
 if you please. I hope that you will not condemn 
 my balloon without a hearing. If you admit a 
 God, you admit of course that he is just, do you 
 not? And that he knows what he is about? Now, 
 how can you think that God could punish pious men 
 like you for the sins of an impious man like me, 
 supposing me to be a sinner? Or, take Monsieur 
 Panuche, for instance. If I had administered a 
 kick to Monsieur Panuche, would Monsieur Panuche 
 go off and pull the choir boys' ears? Now, do you 
 think that God has less wit than Monsieur Panuche, 
 and that he does what an Angelus-ringer would not 
 do?" 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Panuche, "I call you to wit- 
 ness that he insults me." 
 
 "What! I insult Monsieur Panuche, because I 
 say that God is not more stupid than he? Must I 
 say, then, that God has less wit than the sexton of 
 our parish? Is it possible that Panuche would like 
 to become a Pope?" 
 
 The peasants burst out laughing. 
 
 "My brothers ," exclaimed Panuche. 
 
 "Seek him!" said Cornelius to his friend, point- 
 ing at Panuche with his finger. 
 
 Friend Dragon, whose teeth were itching, rushed 
 into the middle of the crowd. 
 
272 BELLE-PLANTE AND COBKELIUS. 
 
 "Help, my brothers!" shouted Panuche. 
 
 He fled, but Dragon caught him by his coat, one 
 tail of which remained between his teeth ; and, shak- 
 ing this glorious trophy, he brought it to Cornelius. 
 
 Cornelius placed Panuche's coat tail on the end of 
 his spit, and, lifting it in the air so that aU could 
 see it, he shouted: "Do you see, my friends? 
 Heaven declares for me and my balloon. Monsieur 
 Panuche has excited you to riot against my balloon ; 
 he wished to destroy it. My friend Dragon, on the 
 contrary — for one may well give the title friend to 
 a dog so faithful — my friend Dragon, I say, has 
 been the faithful companion of my labors ; he has 
 guarded my balloon at night ; he has barked at the 
 children who threw stones upon my cloth, and one 
 day he strangled a rooster who was pecking at it. 
 Now, God has declared in favor of Dragon to the prej- 
 udice of his Church, and here is Panuche, stripped 
 of one of his coat tails. Now, let them say that 
 my balloon is disagreeable to God." 
 
 " True !" shouted the peasants, " true ! true ! true !" 
 
 Cornelius' cause seemed won; but the priest, 
 who had watched the whole affair from his window, 
 seeing his troops weakening, ran out upon the bat- 
 tle-field. 
 
 "Cowardly Christians!" he shouted, "is this the 
 
BELLE-PIiANTE AND COKKELIUS. 373 
 
 jray you serve the cause of the Most High? Come 
 m, follow me, those who love me! Heaven for 
 ihose who shall go forward, hell for those who shall 
 stand back !" And he started foremost. 
 
 Cornelius made a half turn, crossed his spit, and 
 limed a thrust at the priest, which would have 
 pierced him as a needle pierces thin cloth. The 
 priest dodged the thrust, but he could not prevent 
 the spit from penetrating his gown in the neighbor- 
 [lood of his loins and nailing him to a poplar. Cor- 
 aelius tried to withdraw his spit from the tree ; but, 
 seeing that he could not do it, he abandoned it, 
 seized the compasses that he had in his belt, drew 
 back three steps, and with lifted arm, sparkling 
 ayes, and a high head, defied his assailants to take 
 mother step, while friend Dragon at his side showed 
 them his white fangs, that looked like pieces of dag- 
 gers. 
 
 Just then Mother Simone arrived, carrying in one 
 land a kettle and in the other a big brush. 
 
 "Monsieur Cornelius, " said she, "here is your hot 
 irying oil." 
 
 Cornelius dipped his brush in the oil, and, ad- 
 irancingupon his assailants, he shouted: "Whoever 
 ?7ishes to share the fate of Belle-Plante, let him ap- 
 
 Droach me !" 
 
 18 
 
374 BBLLB-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 At sight of the terrible brush, the frightened 
 crowd drew back ten steps. 
 
 "Christians," shouted Panuche, "before you re- 
 tire, at least demand that your priest shall be re- 
 stored to you." 
 
 "True! The priest! The priest! The priest!" 
 screamed the crowd. 
 
 "Your priest, gentlemen, is a prisoner of war, 
 and I cannot restore him to you until peace is de- 
 clared. The best of it is that there is no need to 
 make him give his word of honor that he will not 
 escape. I will treat him with aU the respect due 
 to his character and his unpleasant positton. You 
 see, moreover, that he is not utterly deprived of his 
 liberty ; he can move from the point of the spit to 
 its hilt." 
 
 "At least. Monsieur Cornelius," cried Panuche, 
 "give me back my coat tail." 
 
 "That does not depend upon me; it belongs to 
 the brave Dragon. I cannot oblige him to give up 
 his booty." 
 
 " What, cowards !" shouted Panuche, making a 
 last attempt ; " you will suffer your pastor, and your 
 sexton's coat tail which this cursed dog tears be- 
 tween his teeth, to be treated thus!" 
 
XXIII. 
 
 At the same moment a man dressed in red, and 
 mounted on a horse as black as jet, arrived with 
 a naked sword in his hand. 
 
 "It is the devil!" shouted a voice. 
 
 At this sinister cry the assailants fled in all direc- 
 tions. The infernal horseman started for Panuche, 
 who ran for the parsonage at full speed. Overtak- 
 ing him, he lifted him up as if he had been a child, 
 placed him across his horse, took the road for Ohev- 
 roches, crossed the Yonne at the ford, and soon dis- 
 appeared in the neighboring woods. 
 
 Who was this horseman? That is the question. 
 As I cannot make you believe, you who are so fortu- 
 ttate as to live in an enlightened century, that it was 
 the devil, I will tell you very frankly that it was my 
 ancle Benjamin. Now you will wish to know how 
 my uncle happened to intervene in Cornelius' affairs 
 ind had by his unaided effort won this great battle. 
 A.S I do not wish to be mysterious with you, I will 
 iell you all about it. 
 
 275 
 
276 BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 Benjamin was on his way to Dornecy to see a pa- 
 tient. Toward the Maladrerie he saw a horse lying 
 on the ground and a carriage upset. He raised up 
 the horse, but the animal could no longer continue 
 on his way. A young girl was sitting by the road- 
 side crying. It was Louise. 
 
 "Console yourself," Benjamin said to her, "your 
 horse will not be lame and your carriage is not 
 broken." 
 
 "Alas, monsieur, it is not for the horse and car- 
 riage that I weep !" 
 
 And she told him what was happening at Armes. 
 
 "You do not need to go for the marshal," said 
 Benjamin; "your Cornelius is one of my friends, 
 and I will undertake to settle his affair. In return, 
 I ask you only for a kiss when next we meet. " 
 
 Thereupon he remounted his horse and started off 
 at a gallop. 
 
 We know the result of his intervention. Panuche, 
 carried off through the woods and across the fields 
 and meadows that seemed to flee behind him, was 
 convinced that he was going to hell, and recited 
 many a Paternoster. My uncle had him carried 
 into a very dark cellar, and the next day had him 
 brought forth again. 
 
 My uncle had caused a throne to be erected in his 
 
BBLLE-PLANTB AND COKKELIUS. 377 
 
 large hall. Arthus occupied it, representing the 
 Eternal Father. At his feet was the sergeant's 
 poodle, who represented the archangels, except that 
 he had no lyre. Benjamin, sitting at a sort of black 
 desk, in the same costume as the day before, per- 
 formed the functions of the devil. Page, with his 
 wig, represented Saint Joseph. The Jesus Christ 
 was Parlanta, and Manette had very willingly un- 
 dertaken the role of the Holy Virgin. As for Eapin, 
 Guillerand, and Machecourt, they were sundry 
 saints. 
 
 My uncle had been much pleased at the idea of 
 affording his friends the spectacle of a Last Judg- 
 ment, and had notified them to be present at Oor- 
 vol in the morning, a rendezvous at which no one 
 failed, as we have seen. 
 
 A servant dressed in black went to get Panuche 
 in his cell, and bandaged his eyes, because, he said, 
 he could not endure the brilliancy of the Lord, which 
 seemed to Panuche plausible enough. They made 
 him kneel before the Eternal Father. 
 
 " What is your name?" said the Father, in a 
 grave voice. 
 
 "Jean Panuche, my Eternal Father," said the 
 sexton. 
 
 "How old are you?" 
 
278 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 "Why," said Panuche, "it seems to me that you 
 must know that." 
 
 "What profession?" 
 
 " Sexton. Besides, it is impossible that I should 
 be unknown to you; I have chanted oremuses 
 enough in your honor." 
 
 " It is precisely that with which I reproach you. 
 What need have I of all your church music? You 
 have a passion for singing my praises, and your 
 voice is as false as a broken violin. I notify you 
 that after the eighteen hundred years that you have 
 been carrying this on, I am beginning to get tired 
 of it. If I wanted music, I would go to the opera, 
 not to church. You will cause me to stop going to 
 mass. " 
 
 "Eternal Father," said the Guardian Angel, "I 
 beg you to observe that it is not my client's fault 
 if his voice is false ; you gave it to him. " 
 
 "It is true," said the Eternal Father; "let us 
 pass to something else. Satan, with what do you 
 reproach him?" 
 
 "I reproach him because in winter he rang the 
 Angelus at six o'clock insllead of ringing it at five, 
 and because often he did not ring it at all, which 
 deprived Madame the Virgin of a number of an- 
 gelic salutations." 
 
BELLB-PLANTE ANB COKNELIUS. 279 
 
 " Why !" said Panuche, leaning over toward his 
 Guardian Angel, " I have heard that voice some- 
 where." 
 
 "Hush!" said the angel; and he continued: 
 "Eternal Father, I beg you to observe again that 
 this is not his fault ; he was asleep. Now, was it 
 in his power to sleep or not to sleep? Is it not your 
 ordinance that sleep should enchain the faculties of 
 man for a certain time?" 
 
 "It is true," said God. "This is to give him an 
 idea of the nothingness from which I have drawn 
 him. Let us pass to something else." 
 
 "I accuse Panuche," said Satan, "of having 
 scooped out the loaf of blessed bread, and of having 
 sold portions of it in the village for his own profit. " 
 
 "I make answer to Satan," said the Angel, 
 " that, if Panuche has stolen blessed bread, it was 
 because the opportunity presented itself with all its 
 temptations. As the Eternal Father knows, it 
 is the occasion which makes the thief. " 
 
 The Eternal Father lowered his head in token of 
 assent. 
 
 "A man has remained honest," continued the 
 Gruardian Angel, " because the opportunity to steal 
 ias never offered itself to him, and you usher him 
 into Paradise ! Another has had a chance to steal 
 
380 BELLE-PLANTE AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 ten times, and he has stolen only once; I say that 
 he is a more honest man than the first. Yet you 
 send him to hell! If Panuche has stolen blessed 
 bread, it is because he was sexton. If he had had 
 an income of fifty thousand francs, probably he 
 never would have taken a crumb. I claim, then, 
 that the complaint should be dismissed." 
 
 "Well spoken, my Guardian Angel!" said Pa- 
 nuche. 
 
 "What the Angel says is the truth," said the 
 Eternal Father. "Let us pass to something else." 
 
 " I accuse Jean Panuche," said Satan, "of hav- 
 ing sinned against the fifth commandment of the 
 church." 
 
 "The devil!" said the Eternal Father, "this is 
 serious. What does the Angel say to that? 
 
 " The Angel answers that you have organized 
 each man in a certain fashion, and that he must 
 necessarily act according to this organization, just 
 as the duck necessarily goes to the water and the 
 cat necessarily leaps upon the mouse. Man is in- 
 clined to evil, and the best is only the least bad. 
 Now, I compare men, with their different propensi- 
 ties, to stones on a mountain slope. The flat stone 
 will remain in its place; the square stone will stop 
 at the smallest obstacle ; but the round stone will 
 
BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. S81 
 
 roll to the foot. I do not say that it is altogether 
 impossible for man to resist the instincts of his or- 
 ganization ; but it is extremely rare, and you will 
 not find one in ten who has the strength." 
 
 " It is very true," said the Eternal Father, " the 
 Angel is right. It is the same general law that 
 makes the earth turn around the sun and the sun 
 around the earth. Let us pass to something else." 
 
 "Panuche," said Satan, "has incited the village 
 to riot against Monsieur Cornelius. He has made 
 the peasants of Armes believe that his balloon was 
 offensive to you." 
 
 " Who told you that, Monsieur Panuche?" an- 
 swered the Eternal Father ; " have I communicated 
 to you my impressions, perchance?" 
 
 "And," continued Satan, "that because of this 
 you have made it hail in the village of Armes." 
 
 "What, Monsieur Panuche! you said that?" 
 
 " I believed it. Eternal Father." 
 
 "You lie, Panuche, you knew exactly the con- 
 trary. You wanted to serve your priest's hatred 
 for Monsieur Cornelius. Now, I do not wish the 
 priests to mix up my name with their private quar- 
 rels. Much honor it does me, indeed, to pass in the 
 parish of Armes for having made it hail upon the 
 village, because in this village a savant was quietly 
 
283 BELLE-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 making a balloon ! You will tell your priest that 
 I do not intend that this shall happen again. What 
 has the Angel to say regarding this count of the in- 
 dictment?" 
 
 " I will confine myself to imploring divine mercy 
 for my client, and I rely upon the wisdom of the 
 Father." 
 
 " I will beg the Father to observe," said the Holy 
 Virgin, " that the guiltiest party in all this is the 
 priest. " 
 
 " That is true," said the Father. "And, as Pa- 
 nuche is neither virtuous enough to enter Paradise 
 nor guilty enough to be cast into hell, he shall be 
 sent back to earth to be tried once more in his func- 
 tions as sexton. We condemn Satan to carry him 
 back to the place whence he took him. 
 
 " The court is adjourned !" 
 
 They made Panuche drink a glass of rum con- 
 taining opium, and at night a servant carried him 
 back to the public square in Armes. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 A FEW days later Cornelius' balloon, victorious 
 over all its enemies, was ready to rise into the air. 
 Cornelius, to give more solemnity to his ascension, 
 had postponed it to September twenty-ninth, the 
 , day of the local patron saint. The night before this 
 solemn day Cornelius supped at Father Desalle- 
 magnes'. The savant was radiant, but Louise was 
 sad; she heard a voice within her that foretold 
 some misfortune. After supper, although it was 
 very late, she wished to accompany Cornelius to his 
 tavern. 
 
 "Dear friend," she said to him, "you must grant 
 me a favor." 
 
 "What is it?" asked Cornelius. 
 
 " To take me with you to-morrow in your balloon. " 
 
 "That cannot be, Louise; my balloon is not yet 
 trained ; and besides, I have not hydrogen enough 
 to take both of us up." 
 
 "You are deceiving me, Cornelius; you foresee 
 
 some danger to which you do not wish to expose 
 
 283 
 
284 BELLE-PLAHTE AKD COENELIUS. 
 
 me. Yet you know well that my life and yours are 
 but one." 
 
 "Let us not give way to emotion, Louise," said 
 Cornelius; " I must have courage. " 
 
 "I need it more than you," said Louise; "but, 
 since you wish it, we will say no more about it. " 
 
 As they passed the parsonage, they saw a light 
 in the priest's room. He was engaged in examin- 
 ing a gun. 
 
 "What!" said Cornelius, "is it possible that he is 
 going hunting?" 
 
 And they continued on their way. 
 
 Louise accompanied Cornelius to Mother Simone's 
 door. There he bade her good-by, for he did not 
 wish to see her again the next day ; and, as he kissed 
 her, he felt upon her cheeks something that seemed 
 like tears. He hastily entered the house and shut 
 himself up in his room. 
 
 The next day, on rising, Cornelius examined the 
 sky. The weather was stormy ; it had rained all 
 night, and thick clouds were flying rapidly through 
 the atmosphere. Nevertheless Cornelius was un- 
 willing to put off his ascension, and he spent all the 
 morning in getting his balloon ready. At two 
 o'clock Mother Simone's field was surrounded by 
 an immense crowd of curiosity-seekers of all condi- 
 
BELLB-PLAlfTE AND CORNELIUS. 287 
 
 tions; for the news of the experiment which Corne- 
 lius was to try had attracted to Armes an unusual 
 crowd. 
 
 Soon Cornelius appeared in the middle of the 
 field ; he was pale, for he had not slept during the 
 night, hut his eye was radiant, and his bearing was 
 full of a noble pride. Nothing lifts a man in his 
 own eyes like the consciousness that a multitude is 
 . looking at him. 
 
 Cornelius' last thought was of Louise. He called 
 Mother Simone and handed her a little silver pen- 
 cil-case, the only thing that he possessed suitable to 
 offer a woman. 
 
 "If anything happens to me," he said to her, 
 " you will give this to Louise ; if I come down safe 
 and sound, you will say nothing to her about it. " 
 
 Then he mounted into his car. 
 
 As the balloon began to rise, friend Dragon, who 
 had remained beside it as if desirous of guarding it 
 to the last moment, leaped after the car, with the 
 intention, doubtless, of holding Cornelius back. 
 This act of attachment on the part of the dog was 
 looked upon by the crowd as a bad omen. 
 
 Nevertheless the balloon, after swaying for some 
 time, rose majestically into the air, amid the cheers 
 of the crowd, and its wheels, turning as rapidly as 
 
388 BELLB-PLANTB AND CORNELIUS. 
 
 those of a steamboat, impelled it, against the at- 
 mospheric current, in the direction of Olamecy. 
 
 Just then a bright light flashed from the plateau 
 overlooking the village. A gun-shot was heard, 
 and immediately pieces of one of the balloon's wheels 
 were seen flying through the air and falling to the 
 ground. At the same time there came a gust of 
 wind, and the balloon, borne away by it, sopn dis- 
 appeared from the eyes of the crowd behind the 
 mountains of Chevroches. All day long they waited 
 for- Cornelius; all the next day, all the week; but 
 he did not return, and no one could give any infor- 
 mation concerning his balloon. In vain did Louise 
 insert in all the newspapers a note relating to his 
 disappearance ; no one knew anything of him, and 
 poor Louise had to resign herself to mourn him as 
 one dead. 
 
 She had the remnants of the wheel that had fallen 
 from the air buried in her father's garden, and 
 every day she went to the spot to dream of her Cor- 
 nelius. 
 
 THE EKD.